Wear Sunscreen

INITIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. I know that I don’t update my blog regularly, so if you would like, you should leave a comment here with your email address. That way, I can send out mass-emails whenever I update my blog. I know that some of your computers don’t let you leave comments, so you can also email me your email addresses. My email address is: jennygoodwine@gmail.com

2. I get bored here a lot on weekends. If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what all of YOU guys think I should do with my extra time. Of coure I COULD think of things on my own, but it’s more fun if you guys give me suggestions!! Leave your suggestions in the comment area ;)

Tommorow is already October! I can’t believe it. I was sitting at the lunch with the fam an hour ago, and I randomly said, looking off into the distance, “…..Morgen ist Oktober…..” (Tommorrow is October). Markus (host dad) looked at me blankly. Then nodded sympathetically. Hahaha. Then Jakob (host brother) said, “noch neun Tage bis dein Geburtstag!” (still nine more days until your bithday!) Aha! And then Markus asked me if I’d like to have a party for my birthday – I hadn’t thought about it, and the thought made me a bit nervous for some reason. I said to him, “Das weiss ich nicht” (I don’t know), and then he went off talking about something else. I realized – “HEY, I’ve got to say something now, or else it’ll be difficult to bring it up again later!” So I say to Markus five whole minutes later, “Meinst du, eine Party mit euch oder mit Freunde?” (Do you mean a party with you guys, or with friends?). I’m pretty sure my family thinks I’m spacey because of my sporadic mentioning of off-topic things, but he said “mit Freunde” (with friends). SO, now I’ve got a party to plan! I’ll tell you all how that goes; we’re thinking we’ll do it on my actual birthday – October 9th – because I’m going to be in Hamburg with Rotary upcoming weekend. Hopefully people will come on a weekday…

Last night was my friend Mareike’s birthday party, and I had a pretty good time. German parties are sort of lame in a way because they are always exactly the same: drinking, dancing, sitting, and socializing (did you notice that nice alliteration?). No games, no bright areas to actually see who you’re talking to (these parties are always dark and at night) and no quiet areas to actually hear who you’re talking to (the music is always really loud). Haha, but they’re still enjoyable because I do really like the people who are there. The social situation in my school here is so different from what I’m used to. There seems to be absolutely NO social heirarchy; everyone is friends with everyone. Even the really odd people are never left out. There’s one boy in our grade who is sort of socially awkard and strange, reads newspapers for fun, corrects the teacher during class, even sporadically puts his feet behind his head– I think that characterizes him well enough. But everyone still hangs out with him and talks to him – I mean, they realize how weird he is as they hang out with him – but they don’t ostracize him at all! See, at Centennial (my school in Illinois), someone like this guy would definitely be left out of social groups. I have to conclusions to this:
1. Either young German people are much less exclusive than in America (because my other foreign exchange friend from Rotary that live in other parts of Germany ALSO say there’s not much social heirarchy)
2. OR, it’s just because the German school I go to is very small. It’s harder to build exclusive cliques when there are so few people available.

Anyway, my point is that at these parties, no one has a huge ego or anything. So I can easily go up to someone I don’t know and just start talking to them – it’s no big thing. There’s no feeling of “That person’s too cool for me to talk to!” It’s really great and I feel really lucky for that. Maybe the American high school stereotype of “jocks-hang-out-with-jocks, nerd-with-nerds, etc.” is more true than I had thought – or at least compared to this German school.

Also, because I’m America, I often get asked interesting things:

1. When I went to my German class (with the 10 year olds) for the first time, a young boy kept sneaking glances at me with a smirk on his face ALL during class. Finally, when class was over, he pranced over and giddily asked, “KENNST DU STARS IN AMERIKA???” (he basically asked, do you personally know any stars in America?) I didn’t understand what he meant by “stars” at first, so then he said clarified you know, like singer or actors!!! And then, “Wie Fifty-Cent oder Eminem?!” (Like Fifty-Cent or Eminem?!). “OOOOh” I said, like famous, Hollywood type of “Stars”. I then told him I met Britney Spears once, and his jaw dropped.

2. Last night at the party, I was taking a video of my friend with my camera, when another guy said, “HEY! Take one of me.” And then he explained that he wants me to get him his own show on Comedy Central, using the video I was about to take of him. “Of COURSE I can do that, I AM American after all”, I said. Haha, and then I film him introducing himself as a German who wants a show on Comedy Central, and then talks about a hilarious situation he had when he was an exchange student America. He does this with English grammar and a vocabulary that are probably better than a lot native English speakers, hahaha. It’s somewhat sickening how well so many German teens can speak English…

3. Two people have asked me if the whole high school stereotype of "the jocks date the cheerleaders" is true. I always say that it’s difficult to speak for all of America, but it’s not VERY true in my school, only a little bit...


On Friday, I endured my first German school exam. Don’t worry – it was an English test. I was actually sort of bitter about when my teacher told me that I HAD to take it, even though I don’t need grades here; but I just was NOT in the mood for taking a test that day. And it annoyed me that she said, “And it’ll be interesting for me to read your test (since I’m American, etc.).” So she made me endure this FOUR HOUR LONG TEST for her own sick amusement… Someone asked me if tests were ever as long as this in America, and I said n-e-v-e-r. Haha, ok, ok, I’m maybe overreacting, because the test was actually interesting. Here’s how it went: Frau Doser (the teacher) played Bruce Springsteen’s song, Sinaola Cowboys, for us twice. Then she handed us a paper with four tasks on it:
1. Summarize the song.
2. What do you think about the story told in the song? Relate your ideas to the American Dream. (We’re studying about the American Dream in class)
3. Imagine you are a journalist. What would your news report look like if you were to cover the story told in this song?
4. How do you think the story will end? Write your own appropriate ending.

I was really dreading this English test because since English is my mother language, everyone expects it to be good. So I had some bitter sentiments and anxiety over it. But I made myself ignore their expectations and do it for myself, and NOT for them; it was really relieving to me. So I made it fun for myself. I actually enjoyed #4 a lot. I never really tried to write a story before, but it turned out interesting…
Oh, and I threw in some EXTRA difficult and obscure words for my English teacher for when she grades it, just as retaliation ;) Haha…

And also on Friday, I was obligated to approach my former Art teacher, Herr Surkao, about leaving his class for a different art class, which I was sort of dreading also. I explained the situation to him in German, but here’s the English version (sort of odd and ultra simple because my German isn’t very fluid): “I must tell you that I now have Herr Buchholtz because he speaks a bit of English for me. Oh and I made you a card.” He’s not a very emotive guy, and he looked a little strained or something, very indifferent, but sort of like he was disturbed by me approaching him as he walked to class. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been to his class in like two weeks, so he was wondering why I bothered telling him NOW. Anyway, I made him a card (see earlier post) and he awkwardly and sort of confusedly accepted it. And that was the end of that. I feel much more clean now and felt proud of doing two things that I really didn’t want to do. But I forced myself! Because actually the day before, I listened to a song that said, “Do something every day that scares you.”* And that reminded me of a quote I read once by Mark Twain that said, “Do something every day that you don’t want to do. That is the golden rule for easing pain for doing things later that one doesn’t want, but must, do.” Or something like that. No, wait, I just looked it up. It’s actually, “Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”

Until next time,
jennyg

* The song I listened to is called “Wear Sunscreen” by Baz Luhrmann. I suggest you all LISTEN TO IT here on youtube! Please!!:
click here

It’s really a great song with wonderful advice. I’ve gotta thank Meizi Mao and Phoebe Barkan for introducing me to it ☺

And here’s the column by Mary Schmich, which apparently inspired the song:
this

If you actually do listen to it, you should tell me! I'm interested about what you think!