Chocolate and Behavior

I am longing for American chocolate products. Yeah, I know Germany's s'posed to have all this amazing chocolate, but there's something about the stuff made in the USA that really hits my taste buds. Maybe it's homey. Maybe it's just plain good.
The three top things I miss in this category:
1)S'Mores (this always comes around mid-winter when I'm on s'more withdrawal)
2)Chocolate chip cookies. Fresh out of the oven... oh so good...
3)Brownie mix brownies. Because I have yet to have tasted brownies that taste better than the ones that we make out of the Ghiradelli cardboard box.

Here's an interesting observation for you folks- Germans will ignore you. At first it seriously bugged me, but at this point I'm just used to it. In my house, if Clara calls Sebastian in the other room, he simply won't answer. She'll ask a question and he'll simply stay quiet. And it's not as though he's having a conversation with someone else and trying to teach a lesson by not responding- it seems like he just doesn't feel like answering. Daniela does it too, as does Simon. It's strange.

Die Zukunft, pt. 1

The future. It's a foggy topic, with wrinkled, fuzzy-edged images in grey tones. I have ideas about what I want to do, who I want to be. I have ideas. Thoughts. Dreams. But I know that nothing's set in stone. When I was in middle school, I planned on traveling in my summers, paying thousands of dollars to go surf in Fiji and paint a school building or two. I matured, went to high school, decided I wanted to go for a semester abroad. I was itching to get out of the country, experience something totally and completely new. As I researched more and more, I found that a semester never seemed to be enough for students. I nearly settled for a year in Ecuador or Finland, which would have meant I would have worked my entire spring semester, without rowing or extracurriculars. I would have worked the whole summer, sent out letters to businesses begging for assistance, to have my experience. But instead I looked to a country I'd never really even considered, rowed on my crew team, and spent my summer rowing and going to camp. I never imagined myself to be living in Berlin when I was an 8th grader.

On our last skype date, my dad asked me if I'd been thinking about colleges. I'm always thinking about colleges- they poke me from the back of my head, asking me if I should be doing something more productive with my time- studying German grammar instead of watching Grey's Anatomy; working on college essays instead of sleeping in. And the fact that my dad actually asked the question, that I am actually the age that I actually need to start thinking about college, sort of slapped me in the face. My friends are turning seventeen and getting their driver's lisences. They're visiting campuses and trying not to let their AP grades slide. They're taking the SATs and improving their athletic skills in hopes of scholarships. I'm working on my ideas. I don't know what I want to major in in college. Once upon a time I was certain I'd be a world-class novelist and major in English or something of the sort. Then I realized I liked foreign languages so much more, and thought I'd be a language instructor, or work in international relations. And now, as I'm learning more about foreign relations than ever before, I don't know. There are so many things I could do with a major in international relations, but I don't know if I want to go into that field at all. Lately I've been thinking a lot about a path in medicine. Maybe it's bloomed from my recent infatuation with Grey's Anatomy, which at first I was rather embarrassed about, but I realized that people are influenced by the media. That's what the media's there to do. To open minds, show opportunities and different ways of looking at life (oh, and to make money). I've been doing a little research, and stumbled across this guy and his vlog. He's a third-year med student at Columbia University, and I loved this video about his first day in the operating room. It made me dream about being that person someday- snapping on gloves for the first time... but it's still only an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAYtVdm1Vks&feature=player_embedded

feeling listy.

Some songs. They make my bus rides a lot shorter.

1. Hiding My Heart Away- Brandi Carlile

2. Anna- Gunnar Madsen

3. The Quest- Bryn Christopher

4. Skinny Love- Bon Iver

5. Breathe (2AM)- Anna Nalick

6. Honey Let Me Sing You a Song- Matt Hires

7. It Happens- Sugarland (This one's just incredibly fun to listen to.)

8. When Fall Comes to New England- Cheryl Wheeler

9. Isn't It Worth It?- The Brilliant Inventions

10. The Way You Look Tonight- Maroon 5 (cover)

actually not sleeping.

Because I took a shower and I don't like sleeping with wet hair. So. I am going to educate y'all on the very exciting subject of my new school schedule. Which I have only experienced two and a half days of because of this awful bug thing.

MONTAG
8:00-8:45 Chemie
8:45-9:30 Musik
9:50-11:20 English
11:50-12:35 Deutsch
12:35-13:20 Ethik
13:40-15:10 Sport (every other week)

DIENSTAG
8:00-8:45 Latein
8:45-9:30 English
9:50-11:20 Sozialkunde (social studies- kind of)
11:50-13:20 Deutsch
13:20-14:25 Biologie

MITTWOCH
8:00-8:45 Mathe
8:45-9:30 Geschichte (History)
9:50-10:35 Physik
10:35-11:20 Musik
11:50-12:35 Chemie
12:35-13:20 Biologie
13:40-14:25 Latein

DONNERSTAG
8:00-8:45 frei! sleep in...
8:45-9:30 Deutsch
9:50-11:20 Geographie
11:50-12:35 Geschichte
12:35-13:20 frei- but I still have classes. So I have to stay. Ugh.
13:40-14:25 Mathe
14:25-15:10 Latein

FREITAG
8:00-9:30 Musik
9:50-10:35 Mathe
10:35-11:20 Physik
11:50-13:20 Sport
13:40-14:25 Ethik

So a much fuller schedule than before... and longer days. Bleh. Apparently our class leader/ Math and Physiks teacher will be sick for the next 6 weeks, so we simply have no math or physik for the next six weeks. A little strange, but I'm not complaining. That doesn't mean we get free periods, though- just that we have extras of all the other classes to fill the slots. Oh well.

Halbzeit!!!!!!!

Holy crapoley. It's February 12. One of those dream days in the future that you know will come eventually and you'll have a massive party but it seems so far away that you don't bother thinking about it. And now... it's here. And I'm still hacking my lungs out and refilling the trash with kleenex every hour. (It is a very small trash can.) Ugh. I took hopefully my last day off from school today, and slept from 9 am to 5:30 pm pretty much straight through. I think I got up to pee once. And then I woke up still feeling shot and stumbled downstairs, where Sebastian made me eat tortellini (actually pretty good, especially as I'd eaten a banana for breakfast and nothing else the whole day) and then sent me off to dance lessons because apparently I needed to move my body. Which is probably true, and he is a doctor, but after an hour of dancing I thought I was just going to fall over in the middle of the dance floor, so I went home twenty minutes early- the host parents are AWOL. Clara's watching TV with a child's TV face (she didn't even notice me come in) and doesn't seem too worried. I'll probably go to sleep in the next twenty minutes- quite the celebration, don't you think?

On a positive note, I got my Wildwood application in! I'm crossing my fingers and squeezing my thumb (German luck-bringer, I think) that I'm early enough and experienced enough to get the job! Whenever I think about camp I get really cheerful and kind of dreamy, which in certain situations isn't actually a good thing. I have to make sure I keep Wildwood off my mind during school.

Also, I've developed a rather sudden and very strong desire to learn to play the guitar. There was a guitar floating around on my ski trip, and I picked it up a couple times, and now my fingers are legitimately itching to extend my knowledge. I remember about four chords- the ones from Neutral Milk Hotel's Aeroplane over the Sea. Not that that's not a great song, but it gets a little old after a while. I wonder how cheap I could find a guitar here. Hmm.