Today marks 3 months since I left the USA! I haven't been as active on this blog as I thought I'd be, but things have been going really well.
Some highlights from the past month:
-I had a YFU meeting and got to meet other exchange students nearby (including another girl from Michigan!)
-I finally ate Spaghetti Eis
-My best friend Doris came down to visit, and I went to her house over fall break ❤
-I went to the Minatur Wunderland in Hamburg with Doris
-The Big Band club had a concert last Friday
School is pretty decent - in the end, it's still school - and classes are getting easier. I'm finally understanding more than just English class, and actually making some friends! Besides English, I think my favorite class is Social Studies - a class I hated in America. I'm not particularly crazy about learning about the Government, but I have a really nice teacher, and she makes everything easy to understand. My least favorite is definitely German. I can't really participate, because our topic right now is "Agnes" by Peter Stamm, and I don't know enough German to read it. My teacher gave me a easier book to read though, and it's pretty nice to be able to read in German!
My favorite part about school is the clubs. I'm in the Big Band club, the Astronomy club, the Ultimate Frisbee club, and the English Literature club. Big Band is a lot of fun, and it's just like band class at home, except only once a week. We had a concert a few days ago, and it went great! English Literature is my favorite, and my English teacher is in charge. She's definitely one of the best teachers I've ever had! We watched the movie for "Jane Eyre", and now we're reading "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde. Most people in the club are really interested in the USA, and it's really great to have the chance to talk about my country!
German is getting a lot easier, and I'm amazed at my progress. It's slowly making its way into my thoughts and dreams, and (most of) my classmates have finally stopped trying to speak English with me. Before I left, I didn't even want to do my speaking assignments for my German class (which was online - nobody but my teacher would hear me!), and in my orientation I was basically dead the whole week. Speaking a foreign language all day was really draining, I had no confidence in myself, and everybody had to say something multiple times before I could understand it. I never wanted to say anything, because I knew I would say it wrong.
Then one day, I just stopped caring about if it was right or wrong. I think that's one of the most important things I've learned here. It's not that I don't want to be right, but speaking more freely has really built up my confidence. There's been so many times where I thought I couldn't say something, only to find out I knew how all along. It's okay that I speak slowly, it's okay that I pronounce things wrong, that there's so many words I don't know, that I have an accent, that I can't understand everything all the time. Learning the language is part of why I'm here in the first place, and that takes time!
This Friday I'm celebrating Thanksgiving with my family (accidentally a week early), and on Saturday I'm going to see the Magic Flute with my music class. In December I have a weekend meeting with YFU, and we're going to the Heidelberg Christmas market!! 3 months went by so quickly, and sometimes it feels like it should still be September. I'm really looking forward to what the next 7 1/2 months have in store!
Tschüß!
