Sunny Saturday June 8

Today Merinda announced that Tom and his sister would be coming.  At first, I did not know who she was talking about and I had to think for a minute or two and when it came to me, I realized it should have been obvious who Tom was and I felt a little ashamed.  Later, Merinda asked why I had not been excited when she had said he was coming and I explained that I had to think before I remembered who he was and she laughed at that.  I guess Tom and I had not seen each other for too long.

When Tom finally came, he brought a deck of cards.  It was definitely not a trick deck (I know because he let me sift through it) and he had short sleeves so he could not have slipped a card up his sleeve.  How then, was he able to pull off such amazing card tricks!  He made cards disappear, he made them switch places, he even pulled a money joker off the top and put it in the middle, then shuffled it twice and let me shuffle three times.  Then I held the cards out face down and he chose one and guess what?  It was the money joker!!!  It was incredible!  I even searched the deck but found no other money joker.  How he did it, I might never know.

After the Amazing Magic Man Tom, we worked on the house frame that Jörg, Synja, Kyra and I started several weeks ago.  Tom seemed to have a fair amount of experience with tools we used.  We were able to replace the skinny posts holding up the roof for bigger, stronger beams.  We also fit an opening where the door would go.  However, we still have a long way to go.  We still need to cut the bamboo in their yard for the walls of the playhouse.  Our work was made short because it started to rain so we all went in.

Inside, Merinda had set out origami papers and books so we could do origami while the rain slowly cleared.  Tom seemed to know every model in the book and he even turned a house into a with a few swift folds.  Kyra was intrigued by the models and tried a couple herself.  She got her folds of her first few models better than I did on my first time ever.  Finally the rain stopped and we went outside to work again.  We got a little more done but then Tom's mom came to pick him and his sister up.  I hope Tom and I can hang out again sometime soon because we really had a ton of fun. 

Thursday June 6th and Friday June 7th

Yesterday I had karate after school.  Kyra and I got there and waited for the others to come.  When everyone that was coming had arrived, the teacher told us to follow him, so we ran after him once around the gym but then he ran into the hall, in and out the boys changing room and finally outside, down one block, and onto the grass of the park!  We practiced for a while, then we gathered around a willow tree and started fighting it!  If only it were the womping willow from Harry Potter.  But soon after that, we had to go in, to continue practicing.  It was still fun though.

Today in English we had a vocabulary test.  I was not prepared because I thought the grammar test was today and the vocabulary test was Monday, so I did not study the German English words I had written down for homework.  I only got three and I do not know if those are right or not.  I hope I got those right because I will need all the points I can get.  I will need to pay better attention to the dates of my tests.

If you want to be an exchange student, it is not as simple as just buying a plane ticket and going to school.  In Germany, there is a law that says people can only stay as a tourist for ninety days.  We thought we could register me for longer after I entered Germany which we can, but it is a lot harder.  The longest I will be able to stay is one day after school ends IF I am lucky.  I might have to leave within the ninety days length which ends in a few weeks.  That is a big bummer. 

Wednesday June 5

Today my Math/P.E. teacher switched Math with P.E. again.  I am starting to think it is permanently Math twice first hours and P.E. at the end of the day.  After Math, I had Bio twice where my class went into the lab next door.  There seemed to be a little bit of every animal in the world!  In fiction books, you read about pickled eyes and stuff in the creepy attic or something like that.  Well,  it turns out they were not lying, there were slices of muscles in jars and reptile skins and tons of bones!  It was disgusting, cool and interesting all at the same time.  I cannot believe that things like that are found in schools.

In the break, we played "cops and robbers".  I was a cop so I partnered up with Luke and we patrolled the back of the school.  We did not see anyone after three rounds so we went inside and chased a few but only caught one because they saw us first.  I guess we were not sneaky enough to fool them.  It was fun but we were all tired from running around the school.

After school, Merinda let Synja and me go outside so we paced a football back and forth.  Then, we came in to eat and then started on our homework.  We got it done as fast as we could (which was not very fast because we kept getting sidetracked thinking about what we would play outside when we finished).  The minute we finished, we rushed outside to "play Quidditch" .  We took a ball and used bamboo for our broom sticks and threw the ball at each other trying to make a goal.  It was fun, but we should have known it was too good to last.

Tuesday June 4

Today all of my classes were doubles, Politics twice, English twice and Music.  In Politics, we had a substitute.  She was really strict and would not even let us drink from our water bottles!  I was glad when we moved on to English where we read a story and did the vocabulary for it.  Then we talked about the two ways you can say a verb in it's past tense form; for example "go" would be "went" and gone".  It was a fun day and all in six hours!

When Kyra and I got home, we ate lunch and Merinda let Synja, Liam, and I go outside before homework.  We started pretending we were circus performers and needed to earn enough money to buy orange juice and Nutella (a kind of chocolate spread similar to peanut butter) for our bread.  And then we started using money to buy the stuff to make pizza and selling pizza while we performed!  Liam even started selling ice-cream to Synja and me!  We all had a lot of fun until Merinda called us in for homework.

I am surprised the homesickness has only whacked me over the head really hard once.  Maybe it is that I always have something to take my mind off it.  Like homework or playing with Liam are some of the things that would distract me.  There are very few times where I have felt or had time to feel homesick.  Which is a good thing because I do not want to feel homesick or sorry for myself.

Monday June 3

Today was a long day at school but it felt like a short day.  In English, we talked about past tense and how that changes the noun.  It was a nice refresher and reminded me of my grammar class, even though the teaching method was different.  I guess it is good to have it taught to me two different ways.  It reminded me that there are many ways to teach one thing and if one does not make sense, another probably will.

When I was waiting for Kyra's last class to end, the grounds keeper who does not speak English invited me to play foosball on the foosball table with him.  I thought "he doesn't stand a chance so I'll let him score once". Well, not only was he really good, he was almost impossible to beat! That one goal I allowed him, transformed into another and another until the score stood:  3 (me) to 10 (the old grounds keeper)!  The next game I got to 5 before he caught up and the score stood 5 (me) to 10 (the grounds keeper).  Ouch!  I will have to practice before Thursday so the scores will switch to favor me!

I now feel like I know the school almost top to bottom.  Me and my friends will often wander aimlessly through the halls and corridors talking.  Because of this, I now feel comfortable alone in the school although I am glad I have my friends to look after me.  I would not be this far if it were not for my friends and their help.  My friends have prevented a great deal of homesickness from getting to me.

Saturday June 1 and Sunday June 2

Today, after breakfast, Synja and I went outside to fly paper airplanes.  The wind was blowing so hard that when we threw the planes into the wind, they often flew backwards!  It was cool to see the loops and rolls they did.  I am really surprised that none of the planes got lost, even though we threw them really high.  It was cool to see how the paper airplanes were effected by how we folded their wings, how hard the wind blew, and the shape of the airplane. I think airplanes are amazing machines.

Yesterday, we had a party with some friends of Merinda's.  They all spoke really good English because they had all been to America at least once.  We had a fun time talking and eating.  After brownies, cherry pie and nut cake, we went for a long walk.  It rained on us half way through the walk but we were all having so much fun that we did not care!  Nothing could have dampened our spirits that night.

When we got home, Kyra made pizza and we all had apple juice and bubbly water.  They talked about all the places they had been and the things they had seen while traveling.  Liam put on his viking costume and was fighting imaginary dragons while we laughed and continued talking.  Finally, when we could not eat another bite, we all said goodbye and went to bed.  I hope we have more parties like that.  I really had fun.

New Photos!

We added photos to Colman's post about the visit to the museum (from Sunday May 26) ... so be sure and have a look!