school

I usually only attended the first four lessons of school a day so i could than go to langauge school, so even though i have been in school for almost a month now, today was actually my first real day of school. I am lucky with my mondays because i do not have a first lesson, so i have more time to sleep in. My first class is german and so is my second, than we have a break after the third lesson period and it last for about 20 minutes. Than I went to art which is actually the only lesson i can get through with out anyproblems. It is manly because the teacher does not really need to explain things to me, he just sets something infront of me and says draw it. I can choose how i want to draw it, and even sometimes he comes over and helps me shade my drawing. He knows I cant understand him but he will everyonce in a while say some things. In all actuallity though I can understand what people are saying, for the most part. I try to make an effort to listen to the keywords of the sentances, but somehow i forget to look for it and than i still understand what they want to hear from me, or if they are telling me something, or just asking a question. I have an easier time understanding german than speaking it, and my friends always encourage me by saying that half of the people in germany cant use grammer still. So even though my sentances are choppy they repeat my question or what i just said back to me in the correct form and than either say somthing back or answer my question. If i really do not understand it though they do not mind speaking english to me which is a huge help. I usually have double lessons so when i go to german class the next period i have german again, same with art. I had art class so my next period was art. Than after the 5th period we have another break that is 30 minutes long. Than after the break i went to social science, which is not really like social science in america. It is actually a mixture of politics, history, and government. I know politics in english are the same as government but maybe it is different here. Because they go through the democrat´s and republicans, and then they go through the system of government. So i think that they are best explained in two seperate subjects that what we do in america and just put them into one. I only had once lesson of that, and than i went to french class. I think everyone from everywhere except america has the ability to pick up foreign languages really fast. They all could speak fluent french in teh classroom, and i have been in french class for three years, and still do not know half of the vocabulary. I also noticed that here all teh students participate. When a teacher askes a question everyone raises their hands to answer it. Teachers do not even bother really asking questions in america because most of the time we will either wait for the teacher to answer or laugh at the person she chooses to answer it. Its great to see how eager they are to learn new things, and school is not viewed quite how it is in america. Although everyone has to attend school it is thought of more as a privalage here than a right. I only had 7 periods today, and each day i have different classes and a different amount of periods i go too. I go to one class three times in a week, but i have 10 classes all together. I really like how they scheduale it like that because than it gives you alot of time to do homework, and gets you through the school day alot faster. The days are not so boring because you have different classes everyday, so each day is new. Even though there are alot of classes i do not like, its easy because i only have to go to them three times a week. But homework is assigned alot more here than in america. I think that all the students are better prepared for college because they must learn to work outside of school. Homework will have to be something I will ahve to get used to doing, but until i can fully grasp the langauge i think i will stick with just paying attention in class. First comes listening, than speaking, and than i will start to do homework. Being an exchange student is not about just not doing anything in class, so i will eventually have to get up to pace and focus very hard on homework. But it is nice that the teachers do not expect me to be up to par with the rest of the students. Even though everyone is alot more shy here, they are very nice when you get to know them.

I really enjoy school here, and I like almost all of my classes. For classes I take religion, math, art, social science, sport, biology, french, german, spanish, and than of course my favortie subject english. The hardest classes to the easiest are as such, math-german-spanish-french-religion-social science-biology-art-sport-english. I bet everyone notices that languages are at towards the hardest of my classes, and it really is hard to learn all these languages. Becaus the teachers in each subject only speak in that language, and than when they explain things it is in german. So when i cannot understand something than they say it in german and I still cannot understand. I will catch on hopefully towards the end, and it will be nice to come back to the states being able to speak all those languages, but for now i will just try to learn german. I also noticed how advanced their math was, i thought that math would be easy because it is just numbers, but their math is so advanced that I do not even now how to begin to solve the problems. One of my friends told me that 11th grade math here is close to professional math in america. Meaning a mathmatician in america, which I am no math person to being with, so I cannot even come close to what they are doing. I was happy when I went to biology though because my teacher in my old high school was really up to date on teaching and I acutaly already went through everything I am learning now, so i can really understand everything. Also all the names are scientific so they are used everywhere, so i can understand that as well. Sport it easy because all i have to do is watch the rest of the students and figure out what we are doing. Social science is not hard, but more boring to me. It is funny to see that people here in germany know more about our government than we do though. I am also very lucky to have 7 classes on mondays with now first period so i actually only have 6, i have 8 on tuesday, than it goes 6, 6, and 5 on fridays. I really like it also that my class representative put me in all the same classes of my friends jasmine except of course german, and french. She really helps me alot in my classes, and she likes to speak to me whether in english or in german. Some school days are hard, but overall i really enjoy coming to school here. Oh and i also like it because here it is okay to wear the same thing two times in a row, or even a week if you really want because in germany they are not so materialistic as we are in america. So its nice that i do not have to change outfits so many times, and i can re-wear the same pair of pants two times in a week. I think my sister christine would love it here, because than she could even wear her p-j´s to school if she really wanted to, and she could wear them all week. I definatly could get use to not being so materialistic..