Six Weeks and Gettting Harder

Hey everyone,

These past two weeks have been a bit more difficult for me, though they have still been fairly fun. Last week I began, my first ever dance class, which is pretty exciting, and next week I am going to join some sort of first aid club. My English has definitely gotten worse within these past six weeks, which has sort of annoyed me, but is also really good. Also, last weekend I had my first Skype call with my parents, which was really good to hear them and talk to them again, but left me a little homesick. Also, sense I got here, I have partaken in 'The Battle of the Flies.' I am continuing to make some friends around school and dance class, and getting used to things a little, but at least I have already settled in a fair amount. 

So, last week I had begun my first ever dance class, and the best part is that my friend from school also came to join me! I was also happy to see some other people I knew there as well! We worked on the Cha-Cha which was fairly fun. Because it is a basic course, the moves aren't that hard but can still be a little tiring towards the end. 

Next week, I will be going to a First Aid club, which I have no idea what it is they are doing, but am pretty excited about that. The only disappointing part is that it is during lunch, but I am safe because I don't have class for an hour and a half after lunch anyway. I think, and this is from what my friend told me, that if there is an incident in the school, than I would go and help out with the incident, but I have no idea if that is true or not. However, I can't wait for it to start! 

Sunday was a fun day, but also a little bit painful. I started the day off by going down to Heidenheim for a little while with my host dad, and this was a lot of fun! He showed me the different sources of a creek which is the creek that leads through my town in Aalen. We then drove down a little bit further to see the other source of this creek, and we also got to visit a couple of other cool places. The last place that we got to see was a castle that overlooks the whole town. While we were there, a group of performers were playing some music you would hear from way back when. We also were able to go up into a tower and overlook the castle and everything. My host dad, and later my host mom, told me about a meteorite crash in-between my town, and Heidenheim. I'm currently looking forward to the day that I get to go tour that museum, as I have only seen small ones in places like the Space Museum in Colorado. Later that day, after getting home, I had said I was going to cook dinner that night for everyone. However, this went nothing like how I thought it would. Not long after starting, I cut my finger on a slicer, that you would use to slice cheese or potatoes. I then had to ask my host mom for help to finish the meal, which was really nice of her. 

While we waited for the meal to cook, I was able to skype with my parents for a little. It was really good to hear their voices again, and to hear what all they had been up to. I am glad to say that they are both doing well, and so are my two amazing dogs. It was also extraordinarily cute to see my bigger dog spin around and look when he heard me call. I had really wished I could have hugged him, but that is a little bit impractical right now. That night, and the next day, I had felt homesick. I did feel much better at the end of the next day, and even more so the following day, because of being with my host family and friends from school. The homesickness that you get abroad is different from when you are at, say, college. At college, you are still speaking the same language, people are still getting what you mean when you say something, and the people around you are thinking the same way you are. In another country, you probably don't know the language as well, people think a little bit differently than you, and different actions mean different things. You begin to miss your friends and family, because they were the ones who understand you, and while you are studying abroad, you have to remake all of those connections. That is why studying abroad is often so difficult at the beginning, because you miss what you had before.

One of my pet peeves right now is all of the flies in the house. When my host family isn't at the house, I will have battles with them. I will chase them around the house, trying to hit them out of the air, and squish them. The reason I do it while they are gone, is so that I don't annoy them too much while they are here. I can safely say that no fly is safe in this household while I am here.

Ever sense about two weeks in, I began to notice my English getting worse. This is a good thing for me though as it shows that I am working on learning German more so, and not using English as much. However, when I do need to use English, such as in English class, I find myself always having to think longer and harder about which words to use. The most annoying part is when people ask me to translate a meaning, but I don't know a word for it, or when I know the word, but I can't remember what it means. 

Anyway, I think I'll keep my post a bit shorter this week as my last couple have been fairly long. Thanks again to everyone who has left a comment, as I really do like to reading/answering them, and they mean a lot to me. Make sure to look for my next blog in a couple of weeks. I may end up posting it a day late as I am not sure exactly when I will get back from Portugal with my host Family! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, leave them in the comments below! Hope you all like reading what I have been up to so far this year! 

Thanks everyone,

~Michael Steiner~

One for Ten

Hey everyone,

So these past two weeks started out amazing, took an annoying turn, and finished fantastic. For the first week, I had forced myself to translate everything I heard into German, and try just responding in German without using English. For the second week, I have been translating into English, and then Translating back to German. The switch was for the better though, it got me to meet a bunch of other AFS students. Homesickness did kick in, but it didn't take a toll on me. My hopes of not getting sick this year has failed, but not in the worst way possible. Getting to meet a bunch of new people has been amazing, and now am starting to form those friendships that should last a lifetime. I still need to get out and find myself some hobbies but I think that will come soon enough. With a month completed sofar, 

To be honest, I don't even remember what I did for the first half of these past two weeks. All I can remember is that I had fun; I tried to translate most of everything I heard into German, and started to think in German a little. By that, I mean I had no idea what I was saying most the time but it always ended up with the other person smiling and thinking I could actually speak German. School has been fairly decent with only one thing which I am not used to: how crazy the kids in the class seem. In an American school, you find that people don't grab other people's stuff without asking. Here, if you are good friends with your classmates, than you might as well be grabbing their pencil case, dumping it out, chucking it across the room and in the meantime another student has grabbed your textbook and hidden it from you. Although it may not be that drastic most of the time, I cannot tell you any teacher that would allow that at my school in America. So besides that, I seriously don't remember that much from the first week. (I also did not have any alcohol and nor plan on having much, if any more, this coming year.) 

The weekend came and I got to go on a not so bad AFS camp. I had originally spoken with my host sister about these camps, and she didn't like them, but I liked this one. I had arrived Friday afternoon and meet up with some of the other AFS students and staff members. We quickly got situated in our rooms and went over house rules while playing a couple "energizer" games. That night we all stayed up tell past midnight talking about our experiences, both good and bad. The next day we played more games and got closer to one another. We also had these ‘workshops’ that we had to do, which weren’t the most fun. One of the workshops was about making and defining friends, another about nonverbal communication (that one was completely pointless; we finished in 6 minutes.) The other workshops, although completely awkward at one point, were helpful. One was about gender specifics such as showering every day, or "if than scenarios." This was also the most awkward workshop, as they wanted to make sure all of us knew how to put a condom on a banana properly. I had my own opinions on all of this, knowing I won’t be doing anything like this for years, and so I decided to just eat the banana instead and watch the others suffer. I am glad to say that was a wise decision, it satisfied me until dinner. The last workshop was also good as we read letters from previous AFS students and wrote letters to our self, which we will read again at the end of the year. The next day we had started the day with a walk around the town and up the hill in the back. We got to visit a church and most importantly was just to relax and talk to one another. After we got back we clean up, went through a couple of more lessons, and then just relaxed for the rest of the day. After that, we all went our separate ways back to reality. The only downfall to this whole weekend was that we were speaking English for the entire weekend. Although this made me stop thinking in German, it was still important to be able to speak to other students. With everything from speaking English and being weirded out by the workshops, to socializing and making some really good friends in this weekend, losing a weekend of German for all of this was totally worth it.

The next day came around and reality set in. I found myself only wanting to speak English again and wanting to be with people who understand me. This left me wanting to run up to my room and lay in bed and just sleep, School for this day was really hard as I didn't understand any of the concepts they were trying to teach us, and I was beyond tired. This was for some part of Sunday, most of Monday, and the beginning of Tuesday. I remember talking to one of my friends saying that getting past the "one month hump" was one of the hardest parts of the year. I am only hoping this is that one-month hump we were talking about. It seemed to pass over pretty quickly though and now I'm not feeling homesick which is really good. Homesickness is one of those things that impacts people differently, and only you can find what works for you. I found a little time to think about the situation, some sleep, and having people to talk to (other exchange students,) helped me tremendously. Anyway, all is good now and was happy to see that this phenomenon passed over relatively quickly. 

The rest of the week went by at a seemingly slow fast pace, if that makes any sense. On Tuesday, I had begun to feel a little tired and thirsty. On Wednesday, I had felt it hit me during class. I had knew I got sick. Normally when I get sick, it is not noticeable at all but won’t go away, or it will hit me full blast and knock me down for a day or two. This one came not normal to me; it was a normal runny nose and slight cough. It is better today and I expect it to be gone by tomorrow, but it was not normal for me to get sick like this. I believe it had to do with everyone that was sick that I was hanging out with, which was a lot of people. Anyway, I can only hope I don't get sick again this year, but I will live anyway. 

These past two weeks I have been on a search to find myself a club to join. I have asked about a First Aid group within my school but haven't heard anything from it. Also, I have three days set up in the future to go rock climbing with a friend from school. I am also looking at getting set up with a dance group shortly, but I have no idea if I can do that now, as it may be too late. I also just got back from a Church activity, which was fairly fun. I do miss going to church at home a little though, I might just have do something about that when I get back, but that is then, and this is now. I am going to keep working on finding something to do within these next couple of weeks. I have been able to hang out with some friends recently though. Today I was at a birthday party which was pretty fun, and in a few weeks I am going to see a soccer game with another friend from school. 

I have recently been asked this question a bunch and thought I would try to address it as best I can. "Why Germany?" First, I am 1\4 German in the first place, so there is some heritage with my decision. Also, I was interested in the culture (besides the beer part of it) and was looking for a language which I could force myself to learn. I also knew that I didn't want to go to France as I had never cared for the language in the first place. I had also always wanted to learn German in the First place so that had to do with a little bit of it. I also liked Europe. I also knew I didn't want to learn Spanish or Chinese, or go to an English speaking country. My second choice was going to be Norway (accidently put Netherlands), because it sounded cool, and then Finland because it also sounded cool and I wanted to learn why their education system is so good. You can have, as many choices as you want so do not worry about which country too much.  I can't tell you whether Germany is a good first choice for anyone who is wishing to study abroad, but I can tell you I have enjoyed my time spent here so far. I didn't know much to anything about Germany before coming, and can say that you really won't know much about your host country until you actually get there and stick around for a while. I would suggest going with something that you haven’t done before, but having prior knowledge before going is something that will benefit you tremendously throughout the year. 

Now that you have read over fifteen-hundred words, I am going to wrap things up. Make sure to look for my next blog in two weeks on the 17th. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions leave them in the comments below and I will try my best to answer them in my next blog. Thank you to everyone who has already commented on my blogs, it means a lot to me. 

Thanks everyone,

~Michael Steiner~