The One Week Post

It has been exactly one week since I last posted something online. I know this is quite a long time and therefore there is so much to talk about. I hope I will remember everything that needs to be mentioned.
Monday:
Monday was the day when we got our math test back. I was very curious as to what I got. I hoped I would get another good grade but I feared that I messed up on too many things. Anyway it turned out to be great. I got 14 points :) So all of my fear was really not necessary. I am sure you now think "as usual" :) All of this left me with an average of 14.5 points and I wanted to know what I would get as my final grade in math. I was a little afraid that he would ask me to go to the board the next day, because he returned our tests just after the bell, so there was no more time to ask any questions...
I hurried to be back to school way before class starts and I met up with Anna Theresa. We wanted to go for a walk and Jan joined us. Since all of the streets were very icy, walking outside was quite dangerous. On top of that the shoes Theresa and I were wearing were not really shoes made for snow and ice :) Oh well, no one fell (even though it was sometimes very close to happen). I felt great because I have finally been outside. I know it wasn't for very long... just about 15-20 minutes. For me this is quite a lot though *g*
Our next class was geography and since there was a severe problem Theresa and I talked to the teacher during the break and guess what... the problem got solved. I am so very happy. After I came home from school I practiced some piano and some violin as usual. I think I am definitely advancing even though I can't notice it. I need to learn how to be more secure about myself, because if I am not secure about what I do, how can I convince any judge??
Tuesday:
Tuesday was the day when I started to get sick :( It was also the day of getting final grades... so many things turned out just fine for me. I think it is pretty uninteresting to list all of my grades. If you are interested in my grades I will scan you my report card on Wednesday and send it to you :) Anyway, let me just say this much, I am very content with my grades (besides chemistry which does not count towards my Abitur anyway).
Since my headache was very strong in the early afternoon and I was supposed to have a violin lesson, I called my teacher asking her if she does not care about me coming in sick because of her two little children. She said she doesn't care, but she allowed me to delay my lesson until Friday in hope of me feeling better by then. Patrick didn't show up for his piano lesson either so I was able to get some rest, which was probably essential to me getting well sooner.
Wednesday:
Wednesday was practically the last day of this semester! All the grades had to be turned in by then. but I didn't go to school. I stayed home, because I figured that this way I would get well even sooner the reason I didn't go to school was also, because I only had four classes in the morning and sports in the afternoon in which I could not participate anyway. I found out on Thursday that chemistry didn't take place either, therefore I only missed three classes which isn't too bad. I slept horribly that night. I don't know what the reason for this was, but probably my nose and simply being sick. So what did I do all day. I was cutting out some notes for my mom, watching a few movies and then teaching my recorder kids. Those one and a half hours of teaching really exhausted me. The high pitches of the recorder created a huge headache which didn't go away for a while.
Thursday:
On Thursday I decided to go back to school, because I had math. This was the main reason. I am always so afraid of missing those lessons, because I have troubles catching up with it later on. I felt very weak throughout the entire day, but nevertheless I made it. I suppose I didn't have a fever at all just a little bit of temperature. I was wearing my thick winter jacket even inside the school building and sometimes I was still cold!!! It is incredible. I must have had four layers at least :) In the afternoon I was helping a student from 9th grade, because I had promised her. She is not feeling very great and she will probably have to redo this year if she doesn't get help, so I took it upon me to help her. I won't do extremely a lot, just a little bit here and there. I will help her with her GFS in English of course. This is where she needs a good grade the most. Fortunately I was still not having any piano lessons. My teacher is on vacation which gave me the opportunity once again to lay down and rest for a little bit.
Friday:
On Friday nothing spectacular happened... I was dead tired in school, because I was lacking a lot of sleep. Fortunately we didn't have school in the afternoon, so that was very convenient for me. I was able to rest a little bit, practice some more violin, because I had to go to the violin lesson due to my sickness on Tuesday. My head hurt quite a lot when I had finished practicing, but the lesson was nevertheless great. There are so many things I should practice and no time to do so :) During the next vacations I have to write my applications... they are due somewhere in April, but I won't have time in April because of the Abitur, therefore I should do it ahead of time, in order to not run out of time lateron. I went to sleep at a decent time and therefore caught up on sleep. My catching up must have been a good one, because I wasn't able to fall asleep on Saturday for my Saturday afternoon nap.
Saturday:
I went to church as usual... something bad happened to me. I forgot (or better I never knew) that I was in charge of the children's story on that day. Now I had a real big problem. I had no idea what to do. I asked some people who also do the children's story every now and then, but no one had something for me :( Fortunately I got an idea in time and took some notes. Everything went all right in the end, but I was a little embarrassed, because I haven't acted very responsibly even though it wasn't really my fault... now Karl-Heinz has my email address and I hope that something like this will never happen to me.
In the afternoon I tried to take my usual nap, after having gone for a walk with my sister, my mom and the dog but I couldn't fall asleep so I just laid there for about two hours and rested.

Crazy Weekend

This weekend was extremely interesting and out of the ordinary. Let me start with the Musical I went to on Thursday. It was Elisabeth (Sissi). The music wasn't that great, the action was a little strange, very different from everybody's expectations, but the actors were very good and had nice voices. The only problem was, that I was so very tired from my studies the night before. We got home just before midnight, which didn't give me the opportunity to catch up on sleep at all. Yes, I have taken naps and everything, but this didn't help much :) On Friday I was close to the sleepiest ever. I could hardly pay attention to what was going on around me. Fortunately it got better towards the end of the morning... oh, and we got our French test back. I was surprised to have 10 points and not the usual 9!! So that was a good thing. Right after school I was supposed to leave for the dress rehearsal in Heilbronn. Since there were still things for me to organize after school ended, I was 20 minutes late. My sister finally found me while talking to a teacher. I was a tiny bit upset because of her tone, even though I could understand why she was saying it the way she was, since we were running very late :) Actually I didn't expect to go home one more time, so I had all of my stuff ready before going to school: sleeping bag, clothes to change, etc.
The dress rehearsal was for a satellite sermon on Saturday (today). It was extremely interesting to see how things are being achieved. Rehearsing took forever! Everyone got tired and the spotlight hurt the eyes after a while. I went to sleep over at Günter's house, because I didn't want to go back all the way and return the next day. The only problem was, that on Saturday morning they had no more oil left, meaning there was no more heat, no more hot water, etc. and I had to take a shower which meant that I had to take it with icy water :( It took a lot of courage for me to do it, since I hate cold showers. Nevertheless I had to do it and I did! I am still alive, so it isn't that bad.
The sermon itself went pretty well. All SDA churches in Germany were watching us :) Since I wanted to go home right after the sermon ended and my sister wanted to stay for at least another hour, there was a tiny argument which resulted in her going home by train und us going home immediately. I was so tired that it would have been hard for me to stay there any longer. I just wanted to go to sleep. This went even so far as to say that I won't eat lunch, but my family persuaded me to eat. I think it was a good idea... and now I am off to a stressful rest of the weekend :) I have to prepare myself for French on Monday...

Some Happenings

Today was definitely a successful day for me. I got 15 points on my french vocabulary test which raised my average on those test a whole point!! The reason I did better, because I am now encouraged to study more due to the new teacher (the substitute teacher for 4 weeks). I feel like I just got better by having a new teacher.
Other than that I went to my violin lesson today, which was a great lesson. I do not notice my getting better, but my teacher does and this is also very encouraging for me :) therefore I practiced for another two hours after I was done with everything.
When I was done teaching my students I went of to Rottweil in order to go to my theory lesson which has changed from Monday to Tuesday. Alexandra was not feeling well today, therefore I went alone and guess what happened... I was the only one showing up from the three of us. This new group I am in is extremely small and that is very great! I will improve a lot, hopefully. My mom said, I should use my dads car to drive to Rottweil to save our gas :) the only problem was, that my dads car was running short of gas, so I had to fill the tank up at a Shell gas station. Since I didn't know where the next Shell gas station is, I called my dad, and he directed me there. Everything went all right and I went back on my way, but for some reason I took a kind of wrong turn which didn't lead me to the Autobahn, but to a regular Landstraße. I figured that it wouldn't be worth turning, and therefore I stayed there. Unfortunately there has been an accident on the way and the whole street was closed. I had no other option but to turn... oh yeah, I forgot to mention, that it is extremely slippery in Germany right now. My sister fell, because her shoes had no more ground to take hold on. I almost fell, too. Luckily I could prevent this from happening in the last moment. I was on my way back... the sight was pretty bad, since it rained and the streets were wet and it was dark as well. I made it home a half hour late, but at least nothing bad happened to me.
My mom had a great idea today. She was preparing dinner and turned it into a very relaxing family time so that we could exchange news with each other. The funny thing, was that I had eaten my breakfast (the one I take to school) since I didn't eat it in the morning. Therefore I wasn't that hungry, but I still participated, because I thought it was a great idea and probably allows us to get closer...

Short Short Summary

The concert went great. I was much better than yesterday even though messing up a lot. I got to sleep in until 9:30 this morning.
My back really hurts now because of sitting through two concerts. My neck got stiff. Hopefully i will be better tomorrow.

On the Edge

Today was very stressful, even though it was supposed to be the Day of Rest. I went to church as usual. This time it was my fault that my sister was late, because I didn't go to the bathroom in time. I wanted to check my e-mails first to see if there has been anyone who cares about me and fortunately there has. This one girl from school, she wrote me a real nice e-mail :) I then responded, so that she could have a nice surprise, because I told her I was having two concerts. Jan didn't write back, either he didn't notice that I sent him some e-mails or he didn't care about responding. So the same exact thing happens to me as does to you. You are outgoing, sending e-mails and no one feels the urge to respond :( I think I have sent about 7 e-mails to different people on Friday and I only got one e-mail back. You can probably imagine how glad I was to get at least one. Someone really does care about me (other than you of course). Back to church. It was regular. Just the same old, same old. Actually wait, I think the homily was really great. There were three main aspects to it:
1. Let go of the past
2. Let go of your victories and achievements
3. Let go of your hatred
Those were general guide-lines for the year 2006. It really got me, because I think I am still living in the past and I shouldn't. I still strongly dislike people and I shouldn't. Oh, by the way, I am finally getting along with my dad. I hope it will continue like that. I can say that I feel comfortable being around him now. I am so happy that things get straightened up between the both of us. We had a real nice talk on the way back home from our concert. My patience still needs to increase, but I think there is a general trend that leads to better understanding.

Let me tell you a little bit about the concert. Since I had to play the first violin for the first time (and I really didn't have much time to prepare for it) it didn't go well... as expected. I messed up noticeably about once in every single piece. This was kind of sad for me, because I thought I would be able to do a better job. I had practiced two hours on Friday (at least, maybe even three) and another two or three hours today, yet I still messed up so much. I hope I will get better on that though. I think I will now be constantly in the first violin. I don't know if this is something positive of negative, but I guess it should be viewed as positive no matter what, because it shows that people think I can do it. My concentration now is close to zero, and therefore I will stop writing at this point, because I am also getting very tired...

It's About Time For the Weekend

On Wednesday our French lessons restarted with a new teacher. This has an immediate effect on my homework. The literally doubled, at least for some days. It is a little crazy, but oh well. I took a 10 minute nap before going to sports in the afternoon. What we did there was playing volleyball and some other games. During one of them I burned the knee-part of my pants. I will continue using them even though they look kind of bad now, but I don't feel like buying new ones. Maybe some of it will come off after it has been washed. We will see. Other than that I was preparing for my book presentation on Thursday. This took me quite a while.
On Thursday I was freakin' nervous. It got to the point where I was seriously feeling sick. My stomach hurt horribly etc. Since I had a free hour after going to German, I was talking my way through my presentation twice in order to make sure that I know enough vocabulary concerning this topic. I guess it was a little weird for my classmates and they sometimes didn't understand me :( Mr. Schätzle gave me 15 points nevertheless. It counts as a GFS, so just as much as a regular test. Today I asked him for some criticism on my presentation, because I need to know what I need to change for the Abitur. There were some minor issues and I am positive that it will go all right. I don't need to worry about the Abitur at all.
What else happened on Thursday? I went to my History teacher in the evening because she told us that she would give us some useful information concerning the Abitur, which she is not allowed to give us in school and so EVERYONE came, but as a matter of fact, she didn't tell us. We ate, we talked, we laughed and we left. That was about everything going on this evening. I am so glad I went, even though we didn't get the information we wanted to, because I got to socialize! This always great for me. After that I talked for about an hour with a classmate :) This was fun and towards the end I tried to study my French vocabulary. I got so tired that I just went to sleep after a while.
Today there was nothing exciting going on. I have tons of homework over the weekend, I need to study for a French vocabulary test on Monday, I have to translate about ten lines, I have to do my English stuff (actually I can do that on Monday, because our teacher is out), I have to do my math homework and i really need to start studying for the math test on Thursday or else I will fail. I have no idea yet :) I guess I have been pretty lazy in math for the last few weeks.

This weekend there will be two concerts with Adventus Domini. On Wednesday the concert Master called me on my cell phone (the first call I ever got) asking me if I could switch to fist violin, because they were short on players (just for this time) and I said that I would do it if I get the music. He sent it to me by mail and it got there yesterday, but since I was so tired and started getting sick I couldn't start practicing until today. And today I didn't get through it all, because it is too much music for me to handle. My violin was so strong and loud that I started getting a headache. That is pretty weird and usually doesn't happen to me. Since I didn't finish practicing all of the music I am hoping to get more secure on the music I already practiced and to be able to find all the hard parts in the ones I haven't practiced yet through our dress rehearsal tomorrow afternoon.

Three Tests Back

I got three tests back today. The first one was a German test and I have done something extremely stupid that cost me a total of one to two points :) I mixed up Brecht and Heine, two famous German writers and therefore my content was wrong. Oh well, the funny or actually not that funny thing was, that Mr. Peiker publicly announced my mistake. Since he is the way he is, I am not really upset, I just think it is not really nice. The next test I got back was History...as expected it didn't turn out good at all. I only got 9 points and therefore I was below average. This does not happen very often, but I am still ok with it, because I simply knew it. Now it is even harder for me to decide which subject I need to count twice. The options are German and History. Hopefully I will be able to decide in time and make the right decision.
I was kind of sad during History and therefore I asked for permission to go to the bathroom. Guess what happened! My teacher told me that she thought students in grade 13 were able to do that in between classes. I could have cried at that moment – at least almost. I never ask to go to the bathroom, but this time I just needed a short time out. It wasn’t even about going to the bathroomJ. Fortunately I was still allowed to go. After the lesson I thought about explaining this to my teacher, but then I decided not to, because she might not understand anyway and I don’t want to make her pity me.
At that point my day could not get much worse, but of course it did. I had math and was asked to come to the board for the first test. I was not prepared at all, and therefore I was a little afraid to mess everything up. The great thing was that he only asked me easy standard things, and the more complex problem was very similar to the one we did the day before, therefore I still knew all the ways for solving the problem. Only the last part I couldn’t do, because it was too long ago, but this didn’t matter at that point, since I was really fast throughout the whole process. I didn’t recognize this at all. My classmates told me later on that they could hardly copy my calculations on the board and best of all Mr. Lämmle was smiling and telling the really good guys (who were sitting close to him) that this is the way it should go. So I am really good off now. He also told me that I won’t be asked again in a while, since I managed to do it.
The last test I got back was Biology and studying with my mom truly paid off. I got 14 points on it. I was so happy that I put my face in my hands, which surprised the teacher :).
My violin lesson went great today as well. It seems like I am getting somewhere and my teacher seems to be more secure about me making it. Yayay. Other than that was just the regular things: Practice, homework, working on my composition.

Music is Awesome

There is not much time to write about the things I have experienced during the last few days, because it is close to midnight and I am once again dead tired :( oh well. On Saturday I wanted to straighten up the whole house, because I was expecting company on Sunday. Luckily I was able to talk to Priscilla for almost the entire time. I got all rooms of the house clean and I even washed the car from which I am still profiting (cause I have my moms car most of the time). The music room was the biggest mess. Sheets and information which is no longer used accumulated over the past three months. There was just so much garbage and I thought that it would take me forever to clean all of that up, but I finished in a decent time. My room was the last room I got to, because I knew that this room HAD to be straight and therefore even if I were tired I would still clean it up. I went to sleep relatively early (around 11 pm) but I had a real hard time falling asleep. I never experienced something like that before, because for almost the entire last week, I had sleeping problems. It takes me an average of two hours to fall asleep and I even wake up in the middle of the night.
On Sunday I went to a classmates house to watch a movie and it was a real good one too. It was nice being able to talk to a human :)
Oh I forgot to mention something extremely funny. Around 3 pm my time the door bell rang. I went downstairs to see who would come to my house... and guess who it was. Anyway, it was the Police. At first I was a tiny bit shocked because I didn't expect something like that. Everything was cool though, I gave them the cell# of my brothers cell. Since they were asking for something and that was the only thing I knew. My family had been out all weekend. Oh and I also recorded my composition and tried to put the music in a program called capella. This is really cool program and it goes way faster than doing it by hand. So it saves me a lot of time and changes can be made really easily. But when I tried to open it today, there was nothing left except for the beginning pitch. I was screaming... the work of two hours has been ruined. Luckily there was a secure save or something like that and therefore I got everything back, every single note. This was a great relief for me because I already prepared myself for doing everything over.
Monday (today) school started again. What is maybe interesting is that our French teacher has not yet regained his health. I hope the sickness will soon go away, because it definitely is something serious. I even heard that we are not going to take our test on Wednesday. I got my English test back and I had 15 points. This is incredible especially after the feelings I had while taking the test. The average was 7 points and I think this is a very low average for our English class not to say too low. Well I am not the teacher :)
In Geography we also got our tests back and once again I was pleasantly surprised. I got 12 points and I am glad that I got them, because this is like a personal victory... this has been the first good test I was able to study for on my own. Every other test which I took over the course of the last two months was either bad, or my mom studied with me (except for those test I generally don't study for... like English, German etc.)
I also have good news concerning my music theory lessons. Today I was able to do the exercice of pitch hearing (I don't know how I can describe you that, because this is something I haven't done in America... it is similar to melody dictation, except the range contains all the keys on a keyboard...)
Practicing the violin was great-as most of the times. I even ruined one of the hairs on my bow. My violin was partly white after practice because of all the rasin :) I wiped it all away, because if not I would get permanent stains on my beloved violin. Then I did about 30 minutes of piano, I just got so annoyed, because nothing worked out (duh, I haven't done something on the piano for over two weeks).
And then of course I did my school work as usual. I had to do the minutes in Music today and this took quite a while... now I am finally ready to go to sleep and I hope I will fall asleep really quickly, because I need enough strength for tomorrow.

Great Violin Practice

The blisters I got from practicing violin opened today. It is a little painful especially for the double steps,because then the strings cut into the opened blisters. I think the blisters were caused by the double steps (probably the octaves I practiced for over an hour :) ) Nevertheless I will continue practicing, because I feel the progress... I am getting somewhere at least with one of the songs. The sad thing is that I don't like my Mozart Sonata. It sounds weird... oh well I just have to deal with it and I hope I will pass the auditions.
I think I practiced a total of 4 hours today. It was on and off, interrupted by eating, phone calls, etc. So of course, my shoulder hurts and my wrist as well, but other than that I am fine. My whole day was filled with music, chatting and talking.
I started composing a melody the way movie music is done. I don't know if it is any good, but it doesn't sound too bad for me. I was sitting at the piano and just making up themes and trying to put it into an acceptable way. Maybe if I get the chance I will record it, because I think it is interesting. At one point I wanted to modulate, but I didn't know how to do it, so I just forgot about it, because I wouldn't have found my way back. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention my poem. I worked on it today and I just feel weird about one stanza, but I don't know what is wrong with it. I will put some more thoughts into it, maybe I will find out what is wrong before I have to turn it in :)

History will never get done, I think. There is so little progress I make, because I have trouble concentrating and I never really want to do it.

Nothing Spectacular

Sunday has not been very interesting. I slept until 12 and then I got up to read some History. I don't even remember what else I did, probably some music.
Monday was fun because I got to practice the violin for a long time at 11 pm :) It was also my turn to cook and I thought of something cool. I initially wanted to make some potatoes and vegetables, but when I imagined this as my dinner I no longer felt hungry, so I decided to go downstairs to take a look at our freezer and i found some frozen tacos. I got myself some Mexican vegetables, which I prepared also adding some spices to it. I cut tomatoes, peppers, and salad. Just when I was ready with my preparations (Marion helped me throughout the whole process) my mom came home. That was really cool. We were a total of 7 people (because both Marion and Tabea had a friend with them). Fortunately the dinner tasted really great.
Other than that I watched a movie like always and I talked with Priscilla for quite a while. The best thing was that we were talking in German. I hope that we will keep up with this.
To be able to fall asleep faster my mom prepared me a water heat bag (or however you call that in English) and i think I fell asleep fast too.
Today I practiced at least 2 hours of violin if not 3 and it was a very enjoyable time too. I advanced in my reading for History as well. I also watched a movie... oh yeah, my sister and her friend prepared a circus program and so we went downstairs to the Hobbyraum and watched their little show. They were really cute and creative. They had 13 events including the unicycle, handstand, hullahub (this is probably not the right word, but I don't know what else I can say for it) and some ball games. Maybe I will post some of the pics on photobucket.

December 31, 2005

Now the year 2005 is finally completed. It has been a year full of events. The probably most outstanding events this year were me buying my beloved violin, my parents silver wedding, Priscilla visiting me in Germany, working the first time during my summer vacations, participating as a leader in the Children's Bible Week, my aunts wedding, and going on the journey of trying to find out what my religion will be. It has also been a year of hardship because I lost all of the strength for my studies for school!
This much as a quick review. Today was a weird, funny and enjoyable day. I will start with the weird thing happening this morning at 5 AM. I woke up because of a strange noise in my room. It sounded like something was dropping. I immediately depicted horror scenarios. It was really not so cool. I was so frightened to turn on the light in order to find out where this noise came from. After a while I did it anyway, stood up and walked over to the place where I heard the noice and I found... a leak. There was water dropping down from the beam in my room onto the carpet. I was really suprised and relieved that it wasn't something bad. I got the purple plastic basin to protect my carpet. After I had taken care of that problem I tried to go back to sleep but I could no longer sleep. Every time I nearly fell asleep the drops woke me up again. So I was basically laying in bed for three hours not being able to sleep. It was horrible. I got up at 8 to tell my parents and to get ready for church. Today was the day when we were really late for church. I think it was about 10 minutes. I don't know what to think of today's sermon. I found it really strange because the preacher repeated his ideas three to four times and sometimes his thoughts were incomplete and even wrong. He also had a voice that made you so sleepy. I had a lot of troubles paying attention even though I really tried to. Oh well.
We ate lunch at church, because it wasn't worth driving back and forth since we had to be back at 3:45 PM for the year-closing sermon. I didn't feel like taking a nap so I just practiced some organ. It was so much fun to play the songs from our song book and trying to use the pedals for the bass notes. This is really tough for me, because my brain can't sight read music very well when it is more than one melody. I am pretty ok with the violin, the recorder or even the trombone, but the piano is practically horrible, since there are up to four voices to take care of :) Tabea and her friend Natascha wanted to also play some organ therefore I just went to my violin to review the piece I was going to perform. I was able to look in the mirror and work on my posture. Sometimes it helps the intonation if you watch yourself in the mirror... isn't that weird, or for example walking around also helps, because you loosen some parts that cause bad intonation. My performance worked out quite well. When we were done wishing everyone a Happy New Year we went home and our neighbors (Marissa and her family) joined us. We ate Raclette once more (by now I really have enough of it) and had a great time. My dad made me perform my piece for another time and then we played a game awaiting midnight.
The really cool and funny thing this Silvester (as we call it) was that we were going outside just before midnight with our brass instruments and played three songs and one of them was ... our German National Anthem. You should have seen us getting dressed really quickly, the fastest shoes possible, the closest jacket (I also put some gloves on, because it was really cold outside) and then were off for our performance. This was just fun, maybe a little embarrassing, but no one cared. It was something different and therefore enjoyable. The people in our street appreciated it :)
This was the year 2005 and now 2006 has started and I am eager what it holds.