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~