New Music

Yesterday I got my first own cell phone and it was really cheap too :) I only had to pay 1€ for it and I could use the card from the other cell phone that I got from my parents. So finally I am up to date and can always be reached. So far I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing, because I will now turn dependent on a stupid machine and also it isn't that healthy. It is a really little cell phone and it isn't very handy but it is mine and that is all that counts.
Since I went to sleep really late on Tuesday night I didn't wake up until 11 AM. I watched a movie, checked my email and got myself educated over what was going on in the world through a newspaper newsletter which I receive daily on my email account. After that I finally did some research over different religions and I was really glad to having found out. This took quite a while and I am now a little educated on the main teachings or the main focus of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism (Daoism), Islam. For me the Islam was also quite interesting and worth of further research. But I feel like I am even surer that Christianity is the truth. I don't want to say that it definitely is, because I still don't know everything about the different religions, but I looked at some aspects and how they make sense for me and I came to the conclusion that the Christian way is the most logical way. I have also read a book two days ago which dealt with someone having AIDS who then turned to Christianity. This really spoke to me sometimes, even though the style of writing was boring sometimes and then when I was in the car today, not even paying attention to it that much, there was an interview on the radio about conservatism of Christians. I don't know what caught my attention, but all the sudden I listened to it. What is suprising is that the volume was on very low you could hardly hear anything. Oh well. I think I am just interpreting things the way they shouldn't be interpreted. But for right now, I think I have made my decision. I feel like it is the right one, even though I am always eager to learn more and I want to try to stay open-minded, because my decision could be wrong...
Yesterday I was the one to cook dinner. I finally learned how to cook leek and it tasted good too. I was suprised, since I was afraid to ruin it all. I am glad that I got some really good practice in cooking not just the regular noodles and tomato sauce. My mom helped me a little bit towards the end (I forgot that my dad was supposed to help me :) ).
I was glad that Simone and Patrick didn't come for their lesson yesterday. They just forgot about it so we scheduled it for today. This morning my mom came up with the idea that we should go shopping for some decent clothing and I added the music which I had to buy a long time already. We happened to take four hours to complete all of the tasks. We spent a lot of money on music, because I have to have originals when I will go to my auditions.
I feel really bad because I haven't practiced the violin once during my vacation and also I didn't study as much as I wanted to. I always did a little bit, but it was not enough yet. I am no where near done and I only have another week :(
I will go to sleep early today so that I finally might wake up early tomorrow as well. There are a lot of things awaiting me tomorrow such as practicing, studying, tidying up my room, and cleaning the bathroom. From today on I have to read 10 pages of my history papers every day and I still don't feel like studying. I don't know what is wrong with me. I was pretty ok the last two days of last week, but since this week has started all the energy has left... we will see if I can regain some over night :)

Laziness

My days are filled with being lazy. Yesterday we went to visit my grandparents in Bretzfeld and it was a really enjoyable time there. We ate Raclette once more. It seems like this is almost our main food right now :) But I actually had appetite and I guess this is great. I also had my violin with me and my grandpa, my dad and I played some trios. Other than that we talked, watched some TV - a documentary over sea life was on and talked again. My aunt and cousin stopped by for a quick visit as well. We left around 8pm and went home. On the way back home I read my new book which I finished last night. This morning I woke up at 10 and I immediately went to prepare breakfast, because it was once again my turn to do so. After that I went online, checked my email and blog and then went to get dressed. I didn't take a shower in three days - I felt incredibly dirty and greasy. Now I am finally clean, my hair is washed and is drying slowly.
I read my sisters book today and that was about all I did for today. I wish I would have done something productive but so far there is nothing I could call productive. Maybe I will read a little bit of Moon Palace and do some research on the book, because I feel like I didn't get to the true meaning of it yet, as we are supposed to understand it in the Abitur. There are so many things which I still have to watch out for and I haven't even noticed so far. I found out about that when I did a little bit of research yesterday before leaving for my grandparents'. So far I didn't practice anything during the vacation, but I studied probably an average of two hours a day which mostly consisted of reading my books and doing a little bit of math.
There is nothing interesting going on. I wish there would be something interesting to talk about :) but since I am so lazy there is nothing...

Merry Christmas

Saturday: We went to a sermon in Stuttgart - Marion and I - because someone invited us to go there. It was a really dynamic and young church and I appreciated most of the service. There were just a few things that I would have changed... oh well. What this meant though, was that we had to get up at 6 in the morning, leave the house around 7 to get on the train to Stuttgart. Since the church is not located directly in Stuttgart, but in a suburb we had to change trains two times and then take the bus. The good thing was that we met the guy who had invited us, therefore we didn't have to worry about which stop to get off the bus etc. Since it was a special Christmas service, this church was packed with people of the surrounding churches who all went to visit. I think the church didn't expect so many people coming :)
We got home around 2:30. Luckily we ate breakfast in the morning, because we knew that it would take a long time until we get the next meal. My family was already sleeping and Marion and I ate the rests of the lunch. It was a great lunch we ate pâté (I looked this word up and I don't know if it can be used for what we had) which tasted really good.
Then I wanted to take my Saturday afternoon nap, but my feet stayed so cold for about one and a half hours that, by the time we got our presents, I had still not slept any. I was annoyed by that, because I was tired (as usual). Tabea couldn't wait to get her presents and therefore my mom told her to be patient. It was so cute to have someone who couldn't await unpacking the presents. I have probably been the same way when I was little, but during my time it was the three of us being unpatient (Sascha, Marion and I) therefore it wasn't as obvious as it was with Tabea on Saturday. First we sang some Christmas carols, because I really wanted to do that, but I got hoarse after the first song :( It made me sad, because I really wanted to sing several songs. Oh well. Since the carol singing didn't work out we went to unwrap the presents and Tabea was allowed to start. Man you should have seen her... After she was done, everybody else opened their presents. I got a lot of nice things, a new sweater, a new shirt, some new socks (all things which I really needed :) ) then of course money (Tabea gave me 55€!! She did it in such a matter that I wouldn't know at first that the money was from her. She got my mom to write on the envelope and gave me an extra 5€ bill from her so that it won't be obvious - she was so happy that it worked...) This was the greatest gift, because it was from her and usually she is so self-centered and this time she gave me so much.
Marion and I we gave my dad a game which we tried out as our Saturday night family time. It is a real cool and logical game and guess who won...... it was Tabea. I don't know how she managed to win, but Marion, my mom and dad (they were one group), and I really put a lot of thought in the game and still it didn't work out. It was really funny and my little sis was very happy. No one manipulated the game so that she might win, she won because she was the best! After we finished the game we watched a movie, but the first one was really dumb, so we just stopped after watching about 15 minutes of it and we got ourselves another movie - some science fiction movie which I don't appreciate a lot but still stayed for the sake of family time and because I was "forced" to since we watched it in my room :)

On Sunday I slept in until 10 AM. This was a great feeling to be able to sleep in without having an alarm waking you up. When I got up I decided to create some covers for the 16 classical CD's I got from Montha. They didn't have a case, they were just in a huge wallpaper case. I looked for further information of the composers eg from what period they were from, during which years they lived etc. in order to gain some more background knowledge, since I am really bad with all of that. This took really long and then we had to leave for my grandma's around 2. In order to not waste my time in the car I took a book with me, something I wanted to read in order to repeat what we have done in class. I finished the book on the way back just 5 minutes before we got home. It felt really great to have something done.
I think my grandma was a little disappointed because we got there so late and she had waited the whole day not going outside in order to not miss our phone call... I felt really sad. Anyway we had a really nice time and for the last half hour we went to visit my grandpa too. The house had a really strange smell and my sisters and I decided after we had left the house that this usually wasn't as bad ;) I played a little violin for them, because they had helped to finance it. I think they were a tiny bit bored but oh well. At least I have done my duty.
Oh and before we went to my grandma's we picked up Tabea's friend also. Because of that we had very limited space on the way back with the violin her luggage and six people in the car but we got home all right. When we finally were home I finished my covers for the CD's and then I chatted a little bit with Priscilla and then she called me and we wished each other Merry Christmas and also all of the families. Oh guess what... I am just looking outside the window and now it is snowing (two days late).

Big Family Trouble

As a Sabbatanfangandacht, my mom had prepared something to help us as a family. She wanted that everyone deals with each other according to another concept. No longer a concept of pressure and bad words but love and she asked each one who wants to participate to light one candle of our Christmas bush (we don't have a Christmas tree, just a few branches of a tree put in a pot. It looks decent. One of these days I will take a pic of it and post it on photobucket.). Back to our bush... my mom was the first one to light one, but you could tell that it wasn't easy for her. Since she really wants our family to be a family again, she still did it though. Tabea was the second one to light a candle. She is too little to really get to the bottom of the problems in our family. I am glad that she has not yet understood what all of this really was about. She even said to my dad: "You can't light a candle!" My dad asked why he could not, and she said that he will continue forcing her to practice piano and violin thus he won't deal with her on the basis of love but pressure. From this comment of hers you could tell that she didn't get it at all :) I was glad about that. My dad was the third and last one to light a candle. Marion and I didn't feel capable of doing that. We were happy to be out of there soon after all of this took place. This Andacht really shows me where we are as a family. There is no more love for each other but there is a lot of trouble. Luckily every one has his or her own life basically. I am sitting in my room most of the day, maybe watching a movie with my sisters or my mom. Marion sits in her room chatting with friends or watching a movie. Tabea sits in her room, playing whatever and my mom is working everywhere and my dad is out most of the time. This is what you can call a "perfect family" [this is ironical] since there are so very few times to have trouble. We hardly meet and if we do, we hardly talk about stuff that creates trouble such as religion, music,... It is mostly informing family members of what is going on in school. This is what our family life is about. I think it is pretty messed up. As far as I am concerned I think that in my family there is way too much control. I am 19 years old and I think that I am able to make my decisions yet I still get questioned by my dad very often [it would be unfair to say all the time]. Especially when it deals with involvement in church activities. He never accepts my "no" right away. He ALWAYS tries to convince me to participate. I strongly dislike it or maybe even hate it. I can make my own decisions!!! and they are reasonable most of the time. Sometimes I think that he really doesn't have an idea of what is going on in my life. He knows nothing! He thinks that I am not doing enough, that I could do more. At least this is what it seems like since he expects me to participate in whatever is going on and he thinks is important. My mom is always on my side, trying to defend me, but he doesn't even care. Sometimes I just want to tell him to shut up. I will see how things will develop in the future. Hopefully I will be out of here by the end of July - permanently. I hate to be leaving when things aren't better, but I think there is no other way out, because I don't feel like I am capable of loving my dad to a point where I can accept his attitude towards me, my mom and my sisters. It just turns me off as soon as he starts. This is why I didn't light a candle. I was 100% honest. No longer hiding my feelings. I know it was not the expected reaction, but at least everyone knows now what I think.
Tomorrow I will go to a Christmas sermon in Stuttgart and maybe I will meet some new people and I definitely will have fun. My sister Marion is going to join me. We will go by train and therefore we have to get up really early which is why I will go to sleep now :)

Vacations!!

There has been a lot going since the last time I blogged. I don't even know if I am going to remember it all. Hopefully I can.
On Friday I got so extremely overwhelmed with all my homework and things to do, that I started crying. It was horrible. I didn't even get my room straight for the beginning of Sabbath. Since the sun goes down so early in wintertime I got to go to sleep really early too. I think I went to bed around 6 o'clock without eating dinner and doing Andacht with my family. I just didn't feel like it. It took me about two hours to fall asleep since I was so cold. I always need to have warm feet before being able to fall asleep :) On Saturday morning I woke up around 6 and went to sleep again, because it wasn't time to get up yet. I did not eat breakfast either, therefore I was extremely hungry in church... it was a eucharist sermon or however you call that (therefore the not-baptized older girls (Marion, Natascha, Swenja and I) took care of the little kids so that their parents could participate. We only have eucharist four times a year. Those little kids were really noisy and hard to take care of. They wanted to play loud games etc. but they could not because it would have distracted the adults. We were also supposed to have a youth meeting in the afternoon, but because half of the youth left and two of the remaining 5 people were sick and I didn't feel like staying either, especially since some food was missing (because of the people who left). We would have had pizza without tomato sauce and cheese. I am not so sure if that would have tasted great or not, but I didn't feel like trying it out, because I was still tired at that point and I knew that I would have to go home by train and there were no interesting people in the youth, since most of them didn't want to go or had already left. So what we did, was cancelling the meeting and delaying it on January 14th.
Oh boy, I just remember that I have an Adventus Domini concert on exactly that weekend. I need to take care of that ASAP. There are so many dates to keep track of that I easily forget about some. Well anyway, I went home with my parents and we ate Raclette (do you remember what that was, we ate it when we visited your cousin in Switzerland). I didn't enjoy it that much, because I am kind of sick of greasy food (butter, cheese, yoghurt,...) well actually I am sick of food in general. I don't have a lot of appetite right now. I just eat because I have to. Back to the Raclette. I mostly ate everything but cheese: pickles, potatoes, salad... Because we had to try the cheese in order to know which one to buy for New Year's Eve I had a little bit of cheese, but way less than usual.
After that I went to sleep for another two hours, which means that I got some good sleep during the night (usually I nap for three to four hours on Saturday afternoon). After getting up we played some music as a string quartett. Tabea was not very happy at first, because she wanted to do her part with the recorder instead of the violin, but since there were some notes that the recorder doesn't reach she had to do it with the violin. My dad tried to get back in the alto cleff with his viola and therefore everything went pretty slowly and off pitch... you know my dad doesn't hear pitches that well. At the end the piece sounded decent though. What kind of annoyed me, was that my dad wanted to go faster and faster, even though we didn't even get all the notes right not even talking about intonation. We had a tiny argument and he agreed with me at the end, or he just didn't want to argue any longer and therefore gave in.
After we stopped playing we did Sabbatschlussandacht and then we got to the part family time. I was the one to pick something to do and I decided to play a game with my family. It was really fun. But what I didn't expect was that it would take sooooo long. I assumed it would be about an hour and it took more than two. This would have been totally fine, but I wanted to talk to Priscilla that night too and I told her to be there from 6 to7 which she was, but since I was not there yet it almost didn't work out. Luckily I still got to talk to her.
On Sunday there was a lot for me to do. The biggest project was my German paper. I had to do some creative writing. The topic was to invent a house including all the furniture, the garden, and the surroundings which fit a particular type of person. A person which is one of the protagonists in Effi Briest (I don't know if you remember me reading this book). The way we had to describe it was through the eyes of Effi Briest who went to visit this guy. We were supposed to write at least one page. Mine ended up being one and a half pages which is good, because otherwise it would have seemed a bit short. This took three or four hours.
The next big homework was to do a complete math test which took about two hours. I enjoyed doing it though, because it gave me the opportunity to review on planes and lines and what goes along with that. I had a late breakfast with my family (I had already eaten before, but I joined the family still) and while eating I continued working on math in order to not lose any time :) Sometimes I asked my dad, just to see if he knows how to do it and surprisingly he didn't. My mom said that it is a good thing that I can do the stuff my dad doesn't know how to, because usually I need his help at one point or the other.
Then I practiced some piano and if I remember correctly I practiced for quite a long time. I think it was about two hours, and therefore there was no more time to do the violin because I had to go to the Christmas fair in Stuttgart to play with the brass orchestra. Because there was still so much homework to do I took my folder with me and started my English homework in the car. I read through the whole 26 pages of the play in order to really know what this is dealing with, because we had to find similarities and dissimilarities between the play and the drama "much ado about nothing" by Shakespeare. I finished reading in the car and on the way back my sister needed help with French so I just stopped working on my homework and helped her doing hers since she missed a lesson.
The Christmas fair event was quite time consuming, because we rehearsed in the city hall for a half hour and then went outside in the cold to play Christmas tunes for a half hour. I wore two pants and three shirts, thick gloves, and a hat. This way I was probably the only one who wasn't cold, but it looked pretty funny. After we finished playing we packed away our instruments and walked through the fair for another half hour. When we finally got home it was already past 9 pm and I still had to study for my German test the next day and I wanted to finish the English homework. I changed and went to bed, because I wanted to warm it up so that it wouldn't take so long for me to fall asleep. I read through some German notes and then did my English homework and just went to sleep. Finally. I was kind of sad because I didn't get to practice violin even though I wanted to but when I came home I was too tired to practice for the remaing 45 minutes.
On Monday I took my German test. I felt horribly. My eyes hurt so much that the lines were extremely blury for the first half hour and I had a lot of troubles reading the poem. I always had to blink and concentrate a lot in order to being able to read. I knew that I should have stayed home, because this all cost too much time. After that half hour it got better though, so from then on I could productively work on my test. I really liked the poem which I had picked, because there was so much that you could write about. I think I had a total of 6 pages just on one poem :) It dealt with the loss of one's home during the Nazi time. We only wrote for four hours which meant that we still had to go to the last two lessons on Monday. During the lessons in the afternoon I was extremely sleepy but I managed to stay awake. I thought about not going to the theory lesson after school, but I figured that my dad is paying for it, so I should not stay home just because I don't want to go. It turned out to be boring. There is nothing new for me right now which is why I talked to the teacher who had initially promised Alexandra and me to put us in a seperate group after Christmas. Now he said he won't do that until February. Since now we told him that we really want to go to a different group and that we are not satisfied with the lessons right now, I think it will work out in January already.
When I came home I still had to prepare the rest of my German homework, which I had not yet done and I practiced violin as well, because I did not prepare well for my lesson, since I wanted to do well on the concert.
Now on Tuesday I had a horrible violin lesson, because I was so freakin' tired, or I don't know what was the problem, because it sounded pretty good at home. Oh well. What was important of that lesson was that I finally know three of the four pieces which I will play on my auditions in July so now I can really concentrate on preparing them. I hope everything will work out in the end. When I finished teaching my kids I went to sleep, because I was still extremely tired and I knew I couldn't study in the state I was in. So after napping for two hours I could get started out of my own. I didn't need my mom to study with me!!! I was so happy. I think I studied for three hours or even more and I felt pretty well prepared for the test. Anyway the test was extremely weird and I didn't like most of the questions, but what was important was that I could learn by myself again. I think I won't be too disappointed with a low grade, because it is just one subject but of course it would be great to get a good grade...
Wednesday was awesome because it was the first day of vacation (starting in the afternoon). I felt much better just by the fact that I won't have school for quite a while. I prepared all the stuff that I want to do this vacation, which is quite a lot and I already know that I won't finish, since my study time is limited to two hours a day by my mom. So what I will do is studying math and history for two hours and then reading books (which I also have to read) in my leasure time. That way I will get done more. Oh yeah and I also want to practice a lot a lot. We will see how much I will be able to do because I also want to take good care of myself going outside and relaxing... I need to gain strength for the coming months.
Oh one more thing. My mom doesn't want to cook throughout the whole vacations so we will make a plan where everyone is included (even my dad) saying who has to prepare food on what day. Since this plan was not yet finished I asked Marion, who is in charge of it, whose turn it was and she asked me back if I could do it today. So I prepared breakfast thus interrupting my math studies. Math and German was all I did today as a preparation for the Abitur. I practiced piano and recorder today and I went to my piano lessons too. At night I watched a movie with my mom while wrapping Christmas presents...

Lost Confidence

Here we are back in the depression which so often overcomes me. What is the reason this time? Too much work and no time to do it. I even got so far as to copy someones homework which made me feel even worse. I haven't done this in a really, really long time and now I started it again. This shows me where I really am - laying on the floor not being able to stand up anymore. It is sad but true. I CAN'T TAKE IT. Then of course, we got assigned enough homework for the whole week just for French. I am so sick of it. On top of that our English homework is so weird that it will be extremely time consuming. I will have to prepare my paper over a book, too in order to turn it in on Monday or Tuesday. I have to study for the test I have to take on Monday and also I should practice, practice, practice... it is endless that list of things to do.
Let me tell you how "well" I prepared for today's test: Yesterday I could not get myself to study therefore my mom helped me study (otherwise I wouldn't have done anything at all). I had a free hour this morning and I tried to study in the library, but there were so many little kids which made so much noise and therefore I left the library and went to the Mensa, but there I got distracted again. I still studied a little bit, but not as much as I should have.
When I got home, the day was already bad and I still didn't feel like studying for rel ed instead I read the newspaper to inform myself what was currently going on in the world. For the last 15 minutes I then studied asking my family questions...
I think I was prepared for the test but only because my family supported me, studying with me and helping me, especially my mom last night. If we wouldn't have done the last night session I would not have been prepared at all.
We will see how it will turn out to be. I did the best I could and it it will be a low grade so be it. I can't help it.

Performance

Before the concert started I went into an empty room to warm myself up for my performance. I played by heart, getting really warm and starting to sweat. This sweat in return made me feel cold again. It is the way it usually goes. Anyway two minutes before the concert started I stopped and walked downstairs, trying to find myself a chair where I can easily get up for my performance. There was none. So I went back to where I came from.
I felt a little like an animal in a cage, there was no way out of my situation. I prayed, concentrated on reassuring myself that I can do it and when I was no longer able to take it, I went outside and ran for a little bit to get my blood circulating. This helped a lot. Finally it was my turn (the time I waited was "only" thirty minutes but it felt like a lot more). I got my violin and bow, got my music stand, which I found out I didn't need at all, got my music as well.
When I stood there in front of the audience I got very nervous. My bow trembled in a way that I couldn't tune my violin. I just did it approximately and hoped for the best. I tried to calm myself in order to stop my bow from trembling, but it wouldn't work. It was horrible. I had to then start the piece. The first few beats was a total solo. After half of the first movement was over and nothing happened in terms of wrong pitches etc. I got confident. My mom told me lateron that she felt the point where it happened (my dad didn't :)). Because of my confidence my bow stopped trembling. The second movement went pretty good too except for me messing up once. Luckily no one noticed (except for really attentive and musical people) because the pitch fit in the chord since I only left one out and repeated the following twice :)
I was so glad when it was over. Such a feeling is awesome - to know that you have done it!
After my performance I packed away my violin and music stand and went up to where the organ was in order to have a good view and not interrupting any performance.
The chorus was next. They were magnificent. They walked in with candles. It resembled Disney Candle Light but with maybe a sixth of the singers. Their songs were great, too one of them was Gaudete. I am sure you remember that. I immediately tried to remember the words but for most of them I couldn't.
The music teacher which accompanied me on the piano gave me a rose lateron. She is extremely nice and smart. She truly is a musician. When I was up on the gallery I also got to talk to Ms Aldinger which has studied in Texas for two semesters I believe. She also plays the violin. I really enjoyed that talk since she is extremely nice.
When I got home I started having a headache. I still had to study for my religious education test but I couldn't force myself to start. There was no way. I can't help it. I am so exhausted physically and mentally. All I can do is go to school and even this is a new challenge every day. I started wondering how long I will be able to make it still. Surely one day I will break down. So I am looking forward to vacations. I will definitely try to relax and regain strength for the coming time. I need every strength possible. Of course I will study a little bit and practice a lot because I have to, but I will have time for myself - finally.

Black Monday

Monday was just a horrible day.
At first I checked my email and found out that my English teacher had made a mistake, thus sending an email addressed to me to Priscilla. The content of it was extremely weird, and because of the way Priscilla responded I thought she was angry or hurt, therefore I got mad. This was the 'perfect' start for a 'perfect' day.
During math we had to work on a group project and when Mr. Lämmle passed by looking at our work he said that it wasn't even worth 7 points. This was the second negative thing happening to me. This not being enough, I didn'T have the opportunity to work on my chemistry paper which I was supposed to turn in on Monday. On top of that this paper was teamwork and so I didn't fulfil my part. I just hate not getting done in time. Therefore I spent my whole free hour on chemistry but of course I got no where near done. At the end of that hour I figured that I should have studied geography instead, but apparently it was too late by then.
In chemistry we got our test back and I was really surprised about my grade. With this test I had set a new personal record based on 12th and 13th grade. This was the lowest grade I have gotten so far: 6 points. It felt not real. I thought it was all a dream and I would wake up. What made things even worse was that last time I had 15 points. Unbelievable right??!! I don't care as much about the grade though.
Next was French. We had to present something to the class during that hour, so before class started I asked Mr. Vogel if I could leave after finishing the presentation, because I was not feeling well. This didn't help any though.
The last lesson was English. I was looking forward to it because we usually act, which is extremely funny. This time we did some text work which did not help making me feel better. At the end of the lesson I complained because of the email. I was just so upset that I couldn't be fair. Therefore I felt bad afterwards :( Luckily I got the chance to apologize.
I didn't go to school in the afternoon, because I was mentally sick to a point that I didn't feel capable of taking the geography test. Plus I had stomach problems. I didn't find out why for sure, but I think it was the dessert my mom prepared because it had eggs in it and I strongly dislike them.
I slept for the three hours I didn't go to school.

Today we went to go ice skating instead of going to sports. I am so glad I went. It was a lot of fun and I got to do that after a really long time. I don't remember when the last time was that I have gone ice skating. I had the opportunity to socialize and talk.

Study Information Day in Mannheim

Thursday was an important day. I went to the Musikhochschule (conservatory of music) in Mannheim to inform myself of their expectations etc. I was able to attend several lectures and theory courses which were pretty interesting. From about 2 to 3:30 I went to a violin lesson. It was a little strange to me, because the professor did weird movements etc. He was from Poland and had an accent, too but he was a great violinist. The music which the student played was the concerto by Brahms. Really hard music!!
Here comes the funny part of this day. I met Lilly, who is a student there, after she finished her voice lesson and we walked to the train station together. Since I was hungry I bought myself a Kebap. There were still about 10 minutes left so we figured that we might as well walk around a little bit. After a while I got a little bit nervous because I definitely had to get this train because of the dress rehearsal at 7. Fact is that I missed it... because I didn't remember the time correctly. I saw the train leave... oh well. I looked for a new connection to Heidelberg and found one which was not too bad, but I knew that I would miss my train from there only by five minutes. Since the train I took had a little delay anyway I didn'T feel too bad. I was still eating my Kebap and I am just not a gifted eater with such stuff. I spilled some sauce on my pants just before entering the train, had to take seat and all the other seats around me were also taken after a while. The only dumb thing was that my hands were extremely dirty and I didn't know how to clean them without making a mess. Finally I finished eating and I found the napkin (which was half dirty already) and wiped my hands. They got halfway clean. Then I got myself a tissue out from my jacket pocket and with the help of the tissue my hands finally got clean. Now I could put my violin on the shelf on top (until then I kept it between my knees). I was kind of embarrassed, because people were watching me being a fool...
In Heidelberg I looked for the next connection to Stuttgart and it would have been easy if it were Friday or Sunday, but since it was Thursday the fast trains only drove every two hours and apparently I missed my only chance. So I had to take a slower train which therefore got to Stuttgart way later. In Stuttgart I had to wait another 20 minutes for the S-Bahn to Böblingen. All in all I was 90 minutes late for the dress rehearsal even though I ran all the way from the train station to church. The only dumb thing was that the other girl playing first violin did not come either because she had to go to sleep in time (she is only 11) therefore there was no first violin for most of the time :(

On Friday there was nothing spectacular going on. Oh yes there was. I took a test in history but since I missed the final preparation I misinterpretated the caricature... so I will see what I will get for the test. I mean I still got the general idea, I just misinterpreted one of the main figures and there were only two. Oh well.
Our English lesson was kind of weird I can say. We now started a drama. This means we act during lessons. It feels a little strange to me. We should dance (which half of the class didn't because of embarrassment or shyness or whatever). It was my turn to do the minutes so I still don't know what exactly I am going to write in them, I just hope I will do a good job. Those lessons are at least fun!!
I was so tired at the end of the day that I just went to sleep at 5 after straightening up my room. THe day before I had to wake up at 5 to get the train station in time and I got home really late, because we rehearsed until 9:45. I slept horribly though and I think it was caused by the weather because my parents didn't sleep well and my little sister didn't either.

Today we went to church as usual except that we had our christmas celebration today. I know it is not 24th yet :) It was a success even though the chorus missed several entrances. People said that they really enjoyed it. So I guess we met our goal. Guess what happened. The church gave every person in the orchestra money. I got 20 € which means that I am now out of debt. Next week I will receive 50€ for my piano lessons and this will be my first money for my trip to America. I also took a nap for about three hours. We played a game and my dad won because he was just lucky. Tabea lost but she was cool about it. All in all this game was really enjoyable, because we played it in a social manner not seeing when someone had to pay if he had little money etc. at the end when we knew that my mom would return soon we played it the hard way, but my dad just had the best hotels and therefore earned the most. What I liked about this game was that we played as a unit and not one against the other.
After the game, when my mom came home we watched a movie called cheaper by the dozen. I once read a book with that title, but the movie was different. It was still really funny and enjoyable though. We laughed so much and even my dad liked it.

Tomorrow I will have a piano lesson, because I couldn't go on Thursday and I have to study for my test on Monday.

English Test

I was surprised to actually making it in time. I usually need way more time than there is. I had a strange feeling throughout the whole test though. I felt like my sentences weren't linked and didn't make sense. I think I can say that this was the test I was most nervous in. There is so much pressure I create for myself to be good that my good subjects require a lot more nerves than French for example. Anyway, I will let you know two weeks from now what my grade was. I hope it will not be horrible.
I guess I am a little frustrated because I have those kinds of feelings.
By the way, my back really hurts me a lot now even if I just sit on a chair. I will have to get a massage or I have to go to the doctor now. This is absolutely not normal...
Sports was really great. We did some training for the back which I guess was really healthy.

Santa Claus Day - in Germany

I just found out through Alice, that December 6 does not mean a thing in America, in Germany it is getting a few presents in recognition of Nicolaus who gave presents and food to the poor a long time ago. This is why Anna Theresa and I dressed up as Santa Clauses for today. It was a lot of fun. I wore red pants and a white shirt and I bought myself a Santa Claus hat... (it was only 50 cents, so this is not bad at all). It was so much fun to walk around like that for the entire day. People started smiling because of it. No one told me to take it off, even though it actually isn't allowed to wear hats in school. When we met Mr. Peiker in the hallway a few hours after our German lesson, he stopped and asked if he could try one of our hats, just to feel what it is like. He looked at himself in the glass door (right by the Mensa) to see how it looks on him. It actually looked really good. Mr. Schätzle walked up to us (after we continually wore it for three hours) and said that he initially "thought" we had a bad hair day :) So all in all it was really funny and enjoyable. When I went to my violin lesson I still didn't take it off and so the little girl who opened thought Santa Claus had come and unfortunately I had left my present at home. It would have been great to be able to have a present...
The rest of my day was pretty regular: Teaching, practicing ("only" for one and a half hours) and then I watched a movie... now I am going to learn some English for the test I have to take tomorrow. I hope everything will work out. I am a little scared, because I fear that I will mess up and I want to do good.
Oh yeah, tomorrow right after my English test I will practice with a teacher for the Christmas concert Thursday in a week. I hope everything will go allright...

Practice is Fun Time

I know it has been quite a while since I blogged the last time. Now I am taking the time to do it. Over the weekend I slept soooo much. I went to bed at 5 pm on Friday... I just love having a Sabbath to rest and relax. On top of that I took a nap on Saturday which was three hours long. So I can say I caught up on sleep. Therefore it didn't matter that much that I went to sleep late Saturday night (I think it was around 1 am). On Sunday we had a rehearsal for the concert this weekend. This concert is not one of the Adventus Domini concerts, it is a church concert - so it is nothing major. After I came home I read and read and read, until I finally got done with 'the Bonfire of the Vanities'. I almost couldn't believe it that I made it. So before I forgot what it was all about I started working on my presentation. I just don't know how long it will take and therefore I have to really say everything and stop the time which I need because I don't want to do another GFS in English, but if it will take just about 10 minutes then it automatically counts as a GFS. So we will see. Anyway, it made me feel really good to finish this book. I want to keep reading English books in order to build up some vocabulary.
Today the only thing that made me feel good was my practice time. I practiced for 3 and a half hours. I couldn't believe it myself. This is just awesome. I could just practice the whole time and I am enjoying it. I think something has changed about my attitude towards practicing, it is no longer a chore or work, it is fun. So I am having a great time... the only bad thing about is, that my fingers, my left shoulder and my back hurt me after practicing.
During English I got so frustrated because I didn't understand a thing and we will have to take a test on Wednesday and it was our last lesson. I am just so confused. If I had have let myself, I would have started crying - just like that. My sister cheered me up and succeeded in making me feel better. I think this feeling is the result of the criticism I faced during the last few lessons in German. It was probably not intended by Mr. Peiker, but nevertheless he made me feel extremely bad.
Back to the English test. This time I won't be stupid and say that I am afraid (even though I am), because I might get a good grade anyway. I just hope everything works out...

Gray Finger Tips

This day was not normal at all. During English we had a final discussion concerning the grading. The result had to be sent via email. It took me a long time to write this email, because I didn't want to be disrespectful and I didn't want to be too personal if I would have said all of this, it would have been easy. I finally completed it and I think it is allright now.
For the biggest part of the day I talked to my friend over the phone. This was very enjoyable and refreshing.
Then there was my piano lesson. It actually went well today. I felt like I am advancing. Finally! I never thought I would - so now I think if everything continues like that, I will be able to make it in time. So I guess I won't leave Germany before July 24. I am so glad that I have started with my pieces already. There is so much to prepare. Two pieces by Bach (Prelude and Fuga), a three-parted piece by Schubert and a Mozart Sonata (which consists of three pieces). Hopefully I don't have to do all three pieces, but I fear that I do. The music I will play on my violin is not yet sure, but probably the E-Major Partita by Bach, a modern piece by Kabalewski (a Russian composer) and I haven't started the rest yet. We will see.
After coming home from my piano lesson, I talked some more with my friend and then I went to practice violin. I had a great time and now my finger tips are gray. I think I practiced for an hour and a half towards the end my head hurt me really bad, because I am so tired and I couldn't see the notes any more (I was practicing without my glasses) therefore I figured I would go to sleep instead which I will now do :)