New Journal [Jul 26 05 ` 9 59 am] Username: buecherwurm525 Friend me. And I will, of course, friend all of you, too. send a postcard

I am home. [Jul 22 05 ` 9 25 am] [ mood | awake ] [ music | None ] This is so surreal. I got home last night at ten pm, which was about five am German time, so I was dead, but not too dead to stay up two more hours and then get up at 7:30 this morning. What can I say, I'm nuts. But if this is going to continue, my mother is going to have to learn how to make real coffee. Not the watery stuff I got this morning that just about killed me, nor the rat poison espresso she then made. It made me miss Germany, where everyone over the age of six can make coffee. It's all so weird, because I mean, I remember this. It all seems so familiar, but I never... I never really expected to be back here. I was feeling so mortal before I left that I guess I assumed I would die in Germany, and I couldn't fathom any of this anymore. It is so familiar. All of these places that I never thought about while I was gone, and now I'm catapulted back into them. Everything is so familiar, and so surreal. I remember this, but I don't. I have to go over to Emily's house today, have to go pick up some job applications, go clothes shopping at Goodwill so that I have something cute to wear and don't have to run around naked (after the five pounds I gained in Germany this is a particularly bad idea), sort through the heaps of college mail I've gotten, go to the Outpost to restock our kitchen with vegeterian food, call my grandma, stop at the library so that I have something to read (this is superfluous since I'm halfway through the Fountainhead and loving every minute of it and have several Bill Bryson books in German to read after that), walk the dog (who remembers me, I might add) and then sit around and talk to Zaki and Andy and Katy and other such people on the phone. I love you guys all so much, by the way. Even if I have been an overly emotional jerk lately. I really do love you all. And, I am officially closing this journal. This was made for Germany, now Germany is over, and I'll be creating a new journal for my life in Wisconsin. As soon as I have it done, I'll post my new username and everything in here, so that y'all can friend me again. 5 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Stay away, spoilers. [Jul 19 05 ` 11 52 am] [ mood | aggravated ] Warning: if you haven't finished Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince yet, do not read further. I will completely and utterly ruin the entire plot for you by picking it mercilessly apart. If you liked it, you probably don't want to keep reading this, either. It appears that J.K. Rowling has read LOTR. Unfortunately. I know there are much more serious things that need criticism right now, but my first, and most obvious complaint, is that she BLATANTLY COPIED SIGNIFICANT PORTIONS FROM LOTR! Did this occur to anybody else? The doorway where the lines started glowing... And then Dumbledore was running his hands all over it... I mean, okay, in LOTR they didn't have to pour BLOOD on it, but still. And then the huge lake, "don't touch the water," something that jumped out of it, then the pale, dead bodies lying just beneath the surface... It was so painfully obvious that it hurt. If an enormous octopus-like creature had emerged from the depths, I would have closed the book and not opened it again. How could her editor let her do that? Especially since pretty much everyone who's a normal human being has seen LOTR, so it's REALLY obvious, not like before LOTR was a movie when it was just obscure fantasy freaks that read all however-many-thousands-of-pages of it. I mean, god. Harry could have been Frodo, Dumbledore Gandalf, it was so, so obvious, gah! Significant characters just disappeared from the book. Like Neville. And Hagrid. And McGonagall. That kind of pissed me off. And is it possible that at the end of book five Harry was distraught enough to smash half of Dumbledore's office to pieces because Sirius was dead, and he seemed to think about Sirius about twice in the whole sixth book? I sort of got the feeling that Rowling stuffed in a whole bunch of fluff to make it seem like the book wasn't as dark as it really was, which failed miserably, I had the feeling that the first four hundred pages had no plot whatsoever, then it exploded in my face during those last few violent action scenes, and then the falling action was like falling off a cliff. It ended quickly, suddenly, without explanation, which I guess I'm used to, but still. And the last painfully optimistic sentence... Is it possible that that's some kind of terrible literary device trademarked by Rowling? "All of your favorite characters are dead, kids, sorry, life sucks, and Harry still has to suffer, but at least he still has people that love him, and I'll put in some kind of happy fluff so that you don't have to all go and slit your throats now." Harry also always seems to have these moments of profound insight about ten pages before the book is over, which he then promptly forgets as soon as the next book begins. The whole Harry-Ginny thing made me so angry I could spit. She couldn't have made that any more cliche than it turned out. Really. Same goes for Tonks and Lupin. I hate "oh, I feel sorry for me and/or I have to save the world, so we really can't be together" kind of relationships. And I find it cliche when there are two of them in all of four pages. Likewise, the Ron-Lavender thing was heavily overdone. And I sort of hated Hermione. If he doesn't go back to Hogwarts, what good are the books? And does anyone else find it unrealistic that he's going to find all of the Horcruxes in book seven? But Rowling promised not to write about him as an adult, which gives me one last ounce of respect for a woman that has spent the last six years of my life producing literature that I love even though it continually worsens in quality. I also find it kind of irritating that all at once both Voldemort and Malfoy are humanized. Before this book they were, like, ultimate evil, and now all of a sudden Voldemort is this little kid hanging other people's rabbits and Malfoy is sobbing his eyes out in the sink. Not that I'm saying it's bad, just that it was held back too long. It's like being told that the Devil is harboring a Pygmy Puff. Is it possible that Dumbledore has some kind of split personality that only became apparent during this book? Because I found his behavior erratic, unpredictable, and thorougly uncharacteristic of the former Dumbledore. I wasn't terribly surprised that he kicked the bucket, though. I'd been expecting that for ages. I still trust Snape. Anyone else? The Horcruxes seem too easy to me. Before it was this huge mental challenge, now it's like a quest for the Holy Grail. Find all the prizes and you win. How stupid is that? The idea of a Horcrux in and of itself is not terrible, I have to admit, but just that he has to run around and collect them and then battle Voldemort... Where is Sirius? Didn't Rowling promise at one time or another that he wasn't really gone? And why didn't Harry just run upstairs and talk to Dumbledore's portrait? Phineas is always tossing in his two cents, so we know the portraits can talk. I would pay significant amounts of money to know who R.A.B. is. All in all, I thought the book was relatively terrible. It lacked both structure and plot, the character development was either not obvious at all (ie, in terms of Harry) or like being kicked in the face (Dumbledore). There were all of about four chapters that actually had something to do with the previous books, the rest of it was unnecessary fluff. 9 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Update [Jun 29 05 ` 8 09 am] [ mood | artistic ] Just finished doing a poetry update. I don't think any of it was that good, certainly not as good as the things from last year, but all my really good poetry is saved on the computer at Schwager's and I don't have a disk. If you feel like reviewing, there's a link from my LJ that takes you to where my writing is. Reviews will be rewarded with cookies. 4 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Rebellion and Nonconformity [Jun 13 05 ` 10 21 am] [ mood | awake ] Good lord, I haven't updated in ages. My sincerest apologies. Congratulations to everyone who graduated, first off. Which translates to: congratulations to Preeya! I read your speech and it was excellent and almost as good as really being there, except that it totally wasn't. But your message was awesome. I still have another month of school. But aside from that, my life is good. My life is really good. I'm getting Cs in half of my classes, and I don't care. At all! Do you have any idea how freeing it is to not ever worry about grades? To think, gee, I have homework, but I don't feel like doing it? And then actually not do it? I'm the sort of person that thinks, I have homework, I need to move into the library. Like, just hijack one of those little computer rooms. And work obsessively for six hours, during which I take breaks every hour to go to the bathroom and one longer break to risk my life running across the street to Panera, where I always end up buying either a ciabatta or a roll, because they're the only thing I can ever afford. It's sort of embarassing to have to pay for a ciabatta in dimes and then try to make my own lemonade with the free water and lemons and sugar they have lying out there, and then sit down at a table alone. But at least I'm a noncomformist. This is my rebellion, people: stealing lemons from Panera and not paying for ciabatta in quarters. I'm practically Greenpeace. Or the Intifada. Oh, speaking of which, I won second prize in Saxony's political essay contest for youth. I mean, I wrote the thing in English, and, like, half of my class also won second prize, so it's not that big of a deal, but the cool part was that I won this huge geographic encyclopedia with a section on every country in the world, and it is officially the love of my life. I've read, like, half of it. And decided that I want to go to college in Australia. The question of course, is, which of you is going to grow up and become an oncologist? Because I am going to have skin cancer after about five minutes in Australia and I'm not going to be able to afford a doctor, so one of you is going to sponsor-a-skin-cancer-victim. I'll even pick through a dumpster for the commercial. 1 souvenir &; send a postcard

Math [May 18 05 ` 12 14 pm] [ mood | accomplished ] I can't believe it's already Wednesday. Pentecost is a national holiday in Germany, and so I didn't have school on Monday, and I'm still psychologically in Tuesday. Which is bad, because being psychologically in one day and physically in another is a problem during things like math. Because really, I shouldn't even have math today, because really, today is Tuesday and not Wednesday. But I still did fantabulously in math, it was great. I apparently am the only person in my class who has the faintest idea how to find the surface area of any figure, so I stood up there the whole time and found surface areas for all these different complicated figures and everyone sat there and gaped like I was god or something. It was such a beautiful feeling. So now my math grades are F, D, D, A. Isn't that tragic? I sort of hope we do surface area for the rest of the year. I'm contemplating. What else has been happening. Not a whole lot, sadly. I've been in a bad mood for, like, the past two weeks. And I don't really even know why, which is tragic. I want to feel happy again. Well, I think I'm going to go now, because lines are building for the computer and I feel kind of weird sitting here and typing while people look over my shoulder. Back to math now. And more surface areas. And then Russian, which is more eel-like grammar. 1 souvenir &; send a postcard

Parasites [May 2 05 ` 10 00 am] [ mood | parasitic ] It is May 2nd, and eighty degrees. I am sitting upstairs alone in the student computer room in a sleeveless shirt and paper-thin khakis and dying of heat stroke. I spent yesterday outside on a blanket in the backyard, studying for my SATs and falling into stinging nettle repeatedly. And trying to recover from some really nasty parasitic infection I acquired from the water in Hungary. Note to travellers: don't drink the water. Anywhere. Ever. In fact, dehydrate! Drop dead! Just don't drink the water. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like someone is knifing me in the gut and shaking so hard that I can't stop. There are lots of other lovely side-effects that I'll leave to your vivid imaginations. So I finally decided I do need to go to the doctor, since my nausea and shakiness still hasn't let up, a week later, and I don't want to start puking up parasites. Anyways. Now, the Hungary Diaries, which is Friends-Only. If you're reading this and aren't on my friends list and want to be, comment here and I'll add you. send a postcard

Toilets from Hell [Apr 18 05 ` 11 30 am] [ mood | cynical ] You know how everyone whines about the bathrooms at BCHS? Well, don't. Shut up right now and consider that in some parts of the world, people have to pee in little holes that they dig themselves in the ground. Granted, at Maria-Sibylla-Merian Gymnasium Herrnhut we aren't quite that far yet, but trust me, it won't be long. To illustrate the experience for you: there are two girls bathrooms here. One has four stalls, the other has about twenty-two. I do not know why they picked that particular distribution, but then again, I was not consulted in the building plans. In each bathroom there is one roll of toilet paper in the front section near the sinks, where you have to take your toilet paper before you go into the stall. There is no toilet paper in the stalls. The really delightful thing is that the toilet paper lasts, at a maximum, until fifth hour. Then the fun really starts. You basically have to go into the toilet stall (without paper, mind you), and, if you're me, you always end up in the one without a cover, too. This means that every time someone flushes, water sprays up onto the seat. If you have toilet paper, that's not that big of a deal. Since it is now sixth hour, and I didn't, I had to grab onto the plumbing pipes, hoist myself up so that I was really nowhere near the seat, and so on and so forth. Once you actually come out of the stall, you realize that the joy continues, seeing as there is never soap (there was soap my first day here, since then there hasn't ever been any) and rarely paper toweling. So generally, you just sort of wet your hands and rub them on your jeans, and then hurry off to your next class. The moral of the story? The obvious plus of being a guy is using a urinal. 4 souvenirs &; send a postcard

A LAYOUT [Apr 18 05 ` 10 26 am] [ mood | accomplished ] Oh my god, I have an LJ layout. I actually figured out how to make my LJ pretty. If you're looking at this on my friends page, go look at the real LJ, please. It's so damn pretty. I love me! Aside from me loving me- what else is happening? I made lefsa yesterday. It turned out really badly and I wasted the whole morning on it, but oh well. Life happens. I need to go do my trig homework, but I'll be back in an hour or so. 2 souvenirs &; send a postcard

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat [Apr 11 05 ` 10 12 am] [ mood | communistic ] It is 10:19 AM in Germany. It's kind of weird to think that as I'm writing this, it is three am in America and you are all (I hope) soundly sleeping. I've finally started torturing myself with the idea of coming home, and it's bad for me. It's making me overly sensitive again. When I was walking home from choir practice on Saturday I was thinking about it and trying to envision it and just let it hurt (as some kind of pysch-up exercise) and then I got home, rang the bell, remembered I had a key, opened the door with the key, got yelled at by Dagmar for having had a key and still having rung the bell since my host dad was sleeping, and then I went up stairs and burst into tears. I haven't cried in months. So that's just an example. Being emotional has such a shitty effect on me. I despise it. The best part of my weekend was doing practice SATs. I've discovered I can't read. Seriously. I got a 700 on my critical reading portion. How is that possible? I got a 790 on writing, and a 700 on reading. And a 590 on math, but I know I suck at math. I read all the time. How can I possibly be so anti-lingual? I'm busy being disturbed by this. I'm reading another John Grisham book, which probably explains a lot. It's strange- lately everything I read is either literature, or trash. I don't think there's much question in anybody's mind which category John Grisham falls into. Reading his writing gives me stomachaches. It's so bad. I would almost rather read "A Farewell to Arms" again than have to finish "The Firm." The thing is, I have to read "The Firm," because I'm running really, really low on English-language reading material. Once I finish this, I've got the second half of Oliver Twist, another John Grisham book, a book of comedic British (oxymoron) short stories, and Schindler's List, which is probably really good, but I can't keep all the Polish names straight long enough to get through chapter one. Fantasy names, Chinese names, Japanese names, all kinds of weird/foreign literary names are easy enough for me to keep straight, but if the names are Polish or Russian, I have a mental breakdown. What is even weirder is that if the Russian names are written in Russian (Cryllic) lettering, they're easier for me to keep straight. Thus I can't be held responsible for my lack of success in Russian history, since Mr. A never wrote the names Cryllic on the board. That's why, to this day, I cannot distinguish between Lenin, Stalin, Gorbachev, etc. Except that Lenin is the one that is embalmed in Moscow and on public display. Who wants to go to Moscow with me to see Lenin's body? We could play, like, Communist pilgrims and wander around and hand out mimeographed pamphlets with quotes from Marx and Mao and all of our other favorite communists, and rant about the dictatorship of the proletariat while foaming at the mouth. Foaming at the mouth lends credibility to everything. We spent English class this morning going through this paragraph and determining what words need a "the" or an "a" in front of them. For example, in German, if you have a noun, you always put something in front of it, even with proper names. I am not just Elizabeth, I am THE Elizabeth. Not kidding. When you introduce yourself, you go, "Ich bin die/der..." "I am the..." So I like sat there, and was thinking, huh, I wonder if I need a "the" here? I felt so challenged. What's really embarassing is when it actually is challenging and I realize I know little/nothing about proper British sentence structure. If anyone else asks me "shall we go..." while practicing some English dialogue, I will shoot them. "Shall" is the single most abhorrent word in the (British) English language. I try to smack them all over the head with the idea of the words "want to," which is probably doing them a disservice in the long run, since British, and not American, English is "correct" English. Or at least, so they claim. Almost time to go to Geography and eat my apples and get my test back, and then afterwards I am martyring my second free hour to go and take a stab at tenth-grade French. Forget the fact that my only complete French sentences are "Je suis le poisson de jour" (I am the fish of the day) and "Je ne sais pas," (I don't know.) I also used to know how to say "I love Canada," but I forgot that. 3 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Abu Ghraib, Lack of Coffee, and Hungarian [Apr 6 05 ` 12 07 pm] [ mood | sick ] I have a headache (from no coffee) and a stomachache (from no food) and I still have two more hours of school, one of math and one of Russian. Russian is my favorite class. Math... isn't my least favorite class, chemistry is far and away worse, but still not my favorite, either. We're doing trig now, so at least I understand something. Which is more than I can usually say. We were talking about Abu Ghraib in Ethics yesterday. Great, I thought, when the topic came up, shoot me now. Or better yet, why don't we bring up Vietnam, slavery, and reservations all at once just for the fun of it? You know, I guess the mistakes of America mean relatively little to most people if you live in America your whole life. But let me tell you, the second you leave it, you become your country. It is the most screwed-up sensation on the planet, but I am America. I am singlehandedly responsible for every mistake we have ever made. I might as well be Lyddie England. And George Bush. It's crappy because I know that we deserve it. We deserve to have our mistakes flung in our faces, and we deserve to be forced to own up to them. It's just that I don't think I deserve to own up to them. I ought to be glad to still be in school, because when I get home I'll be hit over the head with all of the things I need to be doing. I have a painting (cubism) due Friday for art, and I'm halfway done, I have a geography exam tomorrow and I haven't studied yet, I have to study for my SAT Reasoning Test, and I have to attempt to learn a few bits and pieces of Hungarian because I'm going to be in Hungary in two weeks. Life is too busy. send a postcard

College/Cream Cheese [Apr 4 05 ` 9 40 am] [ mood | rejuvenated ] I have a cream cheese sandwhich. Isn't that disturbing? Like, as in, two pieces of bread. With cream cheese between them. I think it might even be salami flavored. Leave it to the Germans to create something as abhorrent as salami-flavored cream cheese. Well, I'm back in school after a long and lovely break, but I'm actually glad to be back in school. I like school. And today is such an easy day, I have English, chem, two study halls, geography, politics/econ, and German. Bahahaha. I love Mondays. I read the most amazing book last weekend, namely, "The Fourth Queen," but I don't remember who wrote it. It was historical fiction/mystery and with little twists of romance/horror, and it was so beautifully written that I couldn't sleep at night. You all must read it. They go a little heavy on the sex at times, but aside from that, the book couldn't BE better, unless they tacked an epilogue onto the end of it (or another 300 pages). I've started studying for my SATs and determined that I am incapable of doing elementary-level math. I really can't! I see absurd phrases like "the absolute value of positive integer n" and I get a brain aneurism. After I do three such problems in a row, I'm nauseous. I cannot take SATs. I got more stuff from Wellesley. I sit at home and drool over their course selections, I'm such a loser. I ought to be getting viewbooks from Emory and Georgetown, too, so that I can intensify my intellectual greed. Does anyone else get like that while reading through college stuff? Like, this sort of "gimme" feeling about all of the courses, where you want to sign up for all of them at once and gorge yourself, because they all sound so GOOD? My desired major changes daily. 4 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Happy Easter [Mar 28 05 ` 4 31 pm] [ mood | apathetic ] Bah, I haven't updated in eons. But then again, I am on spring break right now, so I sort of have an excuse. Not much of one, but still. I am exhausted. I have hit the low point between my morning coffee and my late afternoon coffee, during which I am slimy and exhausted and in need of a caffeine boost. I spent an hour this morning braiding my host sister's hair, and enjoyed it. I am so pathetic. Katy is in Germany and hasn't called me. Yes, that's right. We could actually be talking for free all day today if she would just CALL ME. I hope she isn't mad at me. I don't think I could stand that. Well, wait, obviously I would have to stand it, I just wouldn't enjoy it. I am too tired to be lucid right now. That's the problem when you talk on the phone until midnight and then stay up reading a thriller until one and then get up at ten thirty. Ten thirty is so late. It makes me disgusted with myself when I sleep that late. I am gonig to a city tomorrow to buy clothes. I need blouses. I keep staining my white blouses by spilling coffee all over them. I need coffee, did I mention that yet? I got tons of chocolate for Easter and was at church basically three days straight. I managed to scrape an enjoyable religious experience out of it, though, and so it was all in all successful. Passion Play was possibly one of the most awesome experiences I have had my entire time here, which is nothing against Germany but says a lot about how awesome Passion Play was. The only hitch was when Christ was carrying the cross down the aisle and slammed it against the lamp hanging from the ceiling, which proceeded to shatter all over him. That sort of ruined the moment. send a postcard

Rambling [Mar 21 05 ` 11 27 am] [ mood | amused ] ONLY ONE MORE HOUR UNTIL I GET COFFEE! Well, theoretically I could be sitting downstairs in the student cafe right now, drinking a mug of caffeine-loaded deliciousness, but I have carefully weighed this matter in my mind (I had to do something during Geography) and have come to the conclusion that it would be better to do it next hour. First of all, then I'll have more energy this evening when I have to give up two precious hours of what would otherwise be studying time to go and play in the brass choir, secondly, next hour I need to kill time anyways since Franzi and Karl are the only people who will still be here and they'll be sitting around necking, so it isn't like I'll be socializing with them. Plus I have a book with me, so my plan for next hour is to go downstairs, drink coffee and read, then go outside, walk to the park, and swing/read. I love swingsets. My life is heaven. This week is SUPER-RELIGIOUS-RIGHT-BEFORE-EASTER-WEEK! There is probably some kind of a technical name for it, but I've forgotten. I know that Maundy Thursday is Thursday (and I have a Passion Play rehearsal and regular church), Good Friday is Friday (and I have Passion Play rehearsal, choir rehearsal, Passion Play performance, and cast party), Saturday is probably something or another, and Sunday is EASTER! And on Easter I am going to church at 6 AM and at 10 AM, once with a friend of mine at six and once for choir at ten. I feel so ridiculously churchy this week, it's scary. I've spent more time in church in Germany than I think I did in my entire life before Germany. BAH, am I perky-happy today. I am exhausted, though, because I was up late last night watching Signs. God, IS THAT A FREAKY MOVIE! I just about had a heart attack every two seconds, and I could only fall asleep that night after I had a) made myself an aluminum foil hat so the aliens couldn't read my thoughts, b) checked under my bed and in my closet for aliens, and c) thrown the sinister-looking stuffed monkey into the hallway. I was so jittery, but bah, that was so scary! I never watch scary movies. I haven't been properly conditioned for them. I ate potato pancakes this weekend! I could have eaten them at two places, cuz I was at Oma's house and she was making some, and asked me to stay, and then I said no and went home and we had potato pancakes TOO! It's a small, potato-pancake-filled world. I think I have to decide where I want to go to college. My dad keeps harassing me about it. On my SAT forms, where I have to put down four colleges to get my score sheets, I put down Wellesly, Georgetown, Emory, and Madison. The only one of those I can afford is Madison. If I were picking based on location, I'd pick Wellesly, because Boston is wonderful. If I were picking based on actual programs, I'd pick Georgetown, because they have a huge international affairs/relations school. I hate Washington, but I'd survive, I guess. And Emory... I don't know, I just like Emory for some vague, undefinable reason. Although a good point for Madison, right near the campus they have both a) Noodles and b) a feminist bookstore. You know that list they have in the hallway across from guidance, the top ten wrong reasons to pick a college? I wonder if, it's like a block away from a bookstore and my favorite restaurant, is on there. Probably NOT, but I'm just guessing. No, honestly, I wouldn't pick a college for the food and the literature alone. Probably not, that is. send a postcard

I hate myself for doing this, but I thought it might be fun for a change. [Mar 21 05 ` 10 18 am] [ mood | accomplished ] [ music | none ] (x)Are you sure you have friends? Er. Hopefully. Unless someday you're all going to jump out at me and scream, "smile, you're on Candid Camera!" and then tell me that you really can't stand me and this was all just a gag. But I hope that won't happen. So yes. I have friends. (x)Best friend? Katy Remler. Even when we drive each other crazy and I expand her horizons and have to listen to her rant about Democrats and when I get disappointed because she can't visit me... Even then, she's my best friend, the kind of best friend that normal people haven't had since middle school, where you're joined at the hip all the time until you eventually end up going nuts. The thing is, we're already nuts. (x)Second-best friend? Eeh. I have a few? Ashley, Ann, Emily V., although to call you guys "second-best friends" feels kind of weird. I think I'd rather say that you guys are all my best friends, but Katy's the one who I have the necklace from. (x)Email the most? Do I email anyone as often as I should? No, but I guess I probably email Ashley or Katy the most, although I'm sure they're reading this and thinking, "but I never hear from you!" (x)Call the most? Ann. (x)IM the most? Don't have AIM anymore. When I used to, Zaki. (x)Best friend of the opposite sex? Karl. (x)Best offline friend? Um. Didn't we just go over that? (x)Best online friend? Don't really have online friends, except for penpals, if we count penpals, then Anna. (x)Which friend do you dislike the most? Bah. Like I'm stupid enough to answer that. (x)Person you can always confide in? Ann, Ashley, Katy, Emily V., my mother. (x)Person that you can talk to for 12 hours straight and never get bored? Ann (x)In a fight or annoyed? Not really. (x)Friend's house you sleep at the most? Er... Karl's. (x)Friend's house you wish you could sleep at but can't? Any of my friends from back home, since I'm in Germany. (x)Who is the first number on your speed dial? No idea. Probably Katy. (x)Who would you take away on a week vacation? Ashley (x)Craziest? Ann or Emily (x)Most fun? Katy or Zaki or Preeya (x)Saddest? Ashley (x) Most Dramatic? EMILY VOLDAHL (in all caps, people) (x)Quietest? Kayla (x)Who knows you the best? My mother, if we're going to get technical, but of my school friends, probably Ann and Emily. (x)Who do you know the best? No idea. Probably Emily. (x)Who do you like to shop with? Anyone who likes to shop for books, namely, Ashley and Kayla (x)Talk with? All of them. (x)Trust the most? Emily, mostly because I know her well enough to blackmail her for the rest of our lives (x)Flirt with? Rene. (x)Laugh with? Everyone. (x)Give advice to? Meh. Emily. Ashley occasionally. Katy occasionally. (x)Who gives you advice? Ashley, Ann, Emily, Katy, everyone. (x)Best singer? No idea. None of you sing around me. (x)Best athlete? Karl (x)Who is the nicest? Ashley (x)Who is the Madlen (x)Best writer? Ann (x)Best smile? Rene (x)Most creative? Madlen (x)Best dressed? No idea. If you're dressed, in my mind, that's a good thing. (x)Best shoes? Kayla. (x)Who doesn't care if they lie? Bah. No comment. (x)Who can't lie? Emily. (x)Most innocent? Katy, until recently (x)Most innocent looking? Katy. (x)Rebel? No clue. (x)Moodiest? Ashley and Zaki (x)Happiest? ME! (x)Cutest? You're all precious. 2 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Random Blather [Mar 14 05 ` 10 06 am] [ mood | good ] [ music | None ] All masochists are hypocrites. Random, but true. I'm debating what else I need to say. I'm feeling positive today, which means I won't whine or rant, possibly a first on here in a tremendously long time. What is really annoying is people who watch movies during the computer lab durin ga free hour. I'm not sure what movie they're watching- at first I thought it was Brother, Where Art Thou, but I've since realized that it must be a German movie, since everyone is wearing German clothing. I have difficulty recognizing movies or actors lately. We watched "Good Will Hunting" last week, and I seriously thought the whole time that Leonardo DiCaprio was in it. I honestly don't notice any major difference between him and Matt Damon. They look exactly the same. It's kind of scary if you think about it. The movie they're watching appears to be some kind of satire on the second World War. How did I think this was "Brother, Where Art Thou?" The Germans are debating whether or not to put the communists and the Jews in the same cattle cars. Definitely a WWII satire film. It looks funny, if the eleventh-graders here weren't so damn arrogant, I would go over and watch, too. But as a lowly 10th grader, I'm not going to risk it. I heard about what happened at the Sheraton, and I still am kind of in stunned disbelief. I mean, that's like, a block away from my house. It seems surreal somehow. My mom told me about it- she was out walking the dog and saw helicopters hovering over the hotel- and then went home to turn on the news and found out what had happened. When I told people here about it, they asked me first of all, if it was a drive-by shooting (Germans are obsessed with drive-by shootings), and second of all, if the man who had shot was black, because that's an Ami-cliche. I answered in the negative to both, much to their disappointment. I have to go now, Geography will begin imminently and I still don't know the different forms of river erosion. 2 souvenirs &; send a postcard

Nothing [Feb 28 05 ` 10 08 am] [ mood | apathetic ] I would write, except that nothing is really happening and I'm not sure where to start. I'm in the computer lab on a Monday morning, disappointed that I didn't get any emails, wishing I didn't have a headache, listening to the guys in the background singing filthy English songs with horrible grammar, and knowing that I really ought to be studying for geography instead of being on Livejournal. I have geography next hour and my teacher thrives upon calling on me during class, so I make an effort to actually study now. I studied math for two hours last night, and now I can do logarithms and exponential functions. send a postcard

Update [Feb 17 05 ` 4 20 pm] [ mood | accomplished ] Contrary to popular belief, I am not dead. Just internet-less and lazy and ill, so I've been sitting around and playing marathon-long Sims games and reading "The Brothers Karamazov," which I may end up reading the rest of my life. It is disturbingly wordy and one of those books that is something you read because you know you should read it. Somehow I always manage to plod through such books alarmingly slowly, except of course for "A Farewell to Arms," which I forced myself to read in about a day because I knew I hated it so much that if I put it down I would never pick it up again. It got better at the end when Catherine and her baby died. That was really the only good part. And when she said she was afraid of dying whenever it rained. I dunno, I'm morbid. I slept over at Aileen's house the other day. That was entertaining, we watched a ton of movies and ate spaghetti and then slept on the floor. It was me, Karl, Rene (male, not female), Madeline, Franziska and I, and... Well, like I said, entertaining. We watched "The Panic Room," which freaked me out really badly and I have now resolved never to live in Manhattan. And I slept for all of two hours, so I've been really lucid the past two days. It has taken multiple cups of coffee to even keep me awake. I think I play Sims too much. In my dreams, I have to click on things in order to make them function. This really is tragic, isn't it? But at the same time, I don't have enough free time. I just realized that next weekend I have a choir rehearsal, the Passon Play rehearsal, a dance recital, and at the same time I am supposed to be in the Czech Republic for the whole weekend. God, I love my life. I am going to have to cancel all of the other things because I really can't get out of the multicultural project that is in the Czech Republic. You are probably all reading this and thinking how exciting my life is, but really, once you get used to it, it isn't all that much different than my life at home was, except of course that I speak German and live with strangers. 1 souvenir &; send a postcard

Physics, Bavaria, and Two-hour Schooldays [Feb 2 05 ` 10 41 am] [ mood | chipper ] Well, second hour just ended and I have no more school today. The radical beauty of a two-hour day is really mind-boggling. We had first and second hour free (I slept late, then took the bus and used second hour as a study hall), then double physics, and now the rest of my class has French and I would normally have Russian, but my teacher is sick today and both of the Russian periods fall out of the schedule, as do both of our hours of math because my math teacher is ill as well. The only thing that is not terrific is that we are going to go out to eat after French and I don't have any money with, so unless I can pawn some off of Karl I'm in trouble. I wish that there were a bus that left earlier so that I could go home now, but the only buses that leave go to Bernstadt and not to Kemnitz. I suppose that I could take the bus to Bernstadt, and then walk to Kemnitz, or I could borrow money from Karl and catch a bus from Bernstadt to Kemnitz afterwards, but I don't really feel like doing all of that and with my luck there wouldn't be a bus on the Bernstadt-Kemnitz-Löbau line until, like, 12:00. So I'll just stay at school. Today is Sophie's birthday, she's fifteen. I gave her an English-German German-English dictionary (which she asked for, I wouldn't have bought it for her otherwise since I understand that not everyone shares my fascination with dictionaries), and a 15 euro gift certificate for Ikea. I bought her that a) because she'll like it and b) because Ikea is in Dresden and I love Dresden and for her to use the gift certificate, we have to drive to Dresden. In Dresden they have Haus des Buches, which is this enormous book store that has shelves and shelves of English-language books. I am so exhausted now, I went to bed late last night and I'm in a really hyper mood today, so I've been progressively tiring myself and Rene and Karl out during physics. We were doing labs on optics and had all of these fun physics toys and I was trying to play with them as they were attempting to do the experiment and I was driving them insane. It was so fun, I love driving Karl and Rene insane. It's not a long drive. I leave for Bavaria on Saturday! Woohoo! Then a week of skiing, and then we come back home and I have a week of relaxing. During the second week sometime we are going to the disco- I don't know if I really want to go again, it is a really intense experience and you reek of smoke afterwards- but I probably will because everyone else is and I want to be friendly. Will update you again, hopefully, before I leave for Bavaria. 2 souvenirs &; send a postcard

[Feb 1 05 ` 11 36 pm] [ mood | amused ] I can no longer distinguish between English and German. I honestly have to sit and consider whether it is English or German that I am hearing. I remember things in English. I'll have long conversations in German and then when I remember it a few hours later, it is all completely in English. Not one word of German, anywhere. I have to go study for my math test. Trig functions, unfortunately. I hate trig functions. The words sine and cosine are EVIL. And I still can't analyze a trig function. 3 souvenirs &; send a postcard

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