Schöne Weihnachten!

As promised, here is holiday season post nummer zwei.

Regarding general day to day activities, I've been quite busy with my internship at the Goethe-Institut, as well as with the B23 German class (the highest class of the intermediate level; after this come the 'C', or advanced, classes and our goal is for me to test somewhere in that level in May) I've been sitting in on as a guest student in order to get my German up and running. Not gonna lie, it's pretty hard to concentrate on German homework and actually

learn something from it when you've been up since the early morning, in class from 8:30am to 1:00pm, and then in the office doing internly duties for the rest of the day (depending on the day, we might get out earlier or later, but usually no later than 5:00pm unless there's an event planned which requires our attendance). But I try to get the most out of it and I have learned quite a bit... Like what "Fortschritt" and all its variations mean. :)

A couple Saturdays ago, it snowed! 8:00am, I heard Leah talking and getting dressed which I thought was unusual until I looked up at my loft skylight window covered in white frozen stuff, which could only mean one thing... SNOW DAY! It was simply amazing; I couldn't get enough of it. Sadly, it melted later on but it's for sure more snow than I would have gotten in Texas. 

The last day of class we ate (my "American brownies" actually ended up turning beige; the consistency was pretty accurate, the color not so much), watched a DVD with short skits, played musical chairs with German grammar question (der bose Braziliener beat me and I came in second place) and played a kind of murder mystery game. We also got to hear why Leo wants to kill all Germans (issues with the Guest House, where 99% of the students stay). This guy is a character and we're all going to miss him. "You should ask for a package full of things you love! What do you love? I don't know what you love, but you should ask for a package full of things you love!"

Thursday marked the first official day of Winter Break for me. About six or so days later than what I'm used to, but I'm nonetheless thankful that vacation is finally here. Unlike my friends who are or were still in German school, I didn't get a Fall Break or start my break several days earlier like a lot of people.

The past few days has been so much laziness to the point where I might explode if I don't do something soon, but at the same time I've felt like I have so much to do. That would include ghost writing a college recommendation for a teacher who will then edit and submit it to my colleges. I highly dislike writing about myself and what I think are my achievements, especially when you don't know whether or not you're overshooting. 


Anyway, back to Christmas and such. The evening of Christmas Eve, we went over to my host mom's brother's house (mind you, this means walking through the backyard) to eat with the rest of the family. It was pouring rain, so we opted for the car. Apparently every Christmas is the same (and you can definitely tell it's the same every year. Well okay, they have to decide which songs to sing), but there's good food, presents and it's the first Christmas I've spent with many more people than I usually do.

Funny video of the day:


















We're flying to England on the 28th and will be coming back on the 1st in 2010. 

Happy New Year / Bonne Année / Ein Gutes Neues Jahr / Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku / שנה טובה

                                                                                                   

Two Roads

It's hard to believe that almost a whole year has passed since I sent in my CBYX application and that new people are getting ready to send in theirs soon. It's even harder to believe that 2010 is upon us and I've been living in Germany for five months now. The States seem really far away and I tend to unknowingly distance myself from people back "home". Honestly, I don't miss it at all. The dogs and Lady are probably the ones I miss most, to tell the truth. With Goethe-Institut students going home for the holidays, it's so surreal that you can just jump on a plane and be on the other side of the world, with the same people you've lived with your entire life, in a matter of hours. At the moment, I can't even begin to fathom that. Erin's gone home to New York, but for her it's not so weird since she was there in October as well; in that case, her stay in Freiburg could be compared to a studious vacation. Ich vermisse meine Freundin von grossen Portionen sehr! I don't know anybody else who completely understands any of our strange, twisted inside jokes.
I feel like I've just relocated for an unknown period of time and as strange as it sounds, Bahlingen is home. People here who don't yet know me really well always ask how long I've been in Germany, until when I'm staying and if I'm homesick. Tonight at Christmas Eve dinner, I kind of internally freaked out after I got several "so, bis wann bleibst du?" questions and at the suggestion of my amazing, handsome, intelligent, buff host dad (and I'm totally not saying all that because I know he'll be reading this :)), I have a brand spanking new standard answer: "so lang wie möglich". I find it to be an improvement from "Alsooo... bestimmt bis Juni, und dann... vielleicht, bleib' ich?" There are some days when it's crystal clear to me that I'm meant to stay, and then there are others when the whole thing seems completely impossible to pull off. The former comes much more often than the latter, though; whether that's a good or a bad sign, I have no idea. My brain attempts to logically analyze the situation but my heart tells me to stay. Where I ended up just seems like too much of a coincidence. I mean come on, how many German-Canadian families (who just happen to end up with an American exchange student) do you find in the area? So what if I'm not taking the traditional college route like everyone else? Sure, I might be missing something regarding dorm life but I'm pretty sure I'd be more than willing to give that up in order to stay here. I simply cannot see myself leaving in June, and that's that.

On the other end of the spectrum, no matter how amazing one's host family is, it's often unbelievably difficult to figure out how to "fit in". It really messes with your head when you're the outsider guest with people who have lived their entire lives with each other, and accepting another is probably one of the most awkward things. Sometimes it just really sucks. That's probably the hardest thing for me as an exchange student. Something that's become an unexplainable minor "pet peeve" of mine is when someone says "wenn du zurück nach Hause gehst..." They really don't mean anything by it and technically, it's accurate. It's called an exchange year, and not an exchange life for a reason. 
The entire family sitting there at Christmas Eve dinner caused me to think about all of this again for the hundredth time, but I started out intending to write about general things I've been up to lately, since my last post was in November. Next post -- versprochen!
Last but not least, Happy Holidays to everyone.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

-- Robert Frost