Midged

Okay I saw this youtube video about guy from idea who is lifting weights. That doesn’t sound all that exciting, but this 21 year old man is just 2 feet tall. He is smaller that midget!!! His bodyweight is 20 pounds!!!

I couldn’t believe it at first, he just looks tiny. But hey: He can lift 10 pounds!!! Which sounds like nothing but it’s half his weight, and who can do that?

And he seemed very happy. It just kind of stinks that he can’t go anywhere alone. I mean if you’re that short, no one would see you if you try to cross the road. It is just to dangerous, but he is also normal so it must stink to hang out with your parents all the time.

I just thought that it is inspiring how much life energy such a small person can have. He has for sure a much harder life than everyone else, who is ever going to read this.
So if he can handle his shortness than we should be able to handle our problems.

Freedom

FR EEEDOM

How can it be that I am in the country of freedom but miss it????!?
This is actually one of the only things I’m really looking forward to, when I am going back to Germany. Doing what I (just I) want to do. It’s not that I don’t have to do anything in Germany but …. It’s hard to explain … it’s just different.
I was just raised with having all freedom I wanted and it worked out fine. I would say that I turned out alright. I get good grades, have friends and even some sort of social awareness (if that makes any sense).

Okay, my host family here is really nice and they are not too strict. It’s just that every little bit of not having is really weird to me. Something like “you better don’t hang out with friend if you’re sick” I know that this is probably the right thing to do, it’s just that I always could make my own choices.
It is very good that they understand me though and try to be as loose as they can. But in general kids here don’t even thing about doing more on their own (not everybody but most), like going alone with just friends on vacation. They don’t think about that but everybody is working (something German kids don’t to that much, we’re more spoiled).

I think nearly all exchange students have this little problem. But one thing is sure, I definitely learned through this experience how valuable personal freedom is.
And the whole issue doesn’t bother me that much that I don’t enjoy it here. Because I do.

Reservation Blues

For a project in La class I have to read a book. It might sound a little nerdy, but I'm actually kind of glad that I have to. i jut to read a lot and even considered posting about books in the beginning. but then since Christmas or something I really didn't read anymore at all. So coming to my point: I am reading Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie. It starts out with Robert Johnson (a famous blues musician) walking with his guitar on an indian reservation. This made me read the book. Something starting out with Robert Johnson and supposedly talking about blues music and Indian (American-Indians) can not be that bad.

And it's not. I really dig it actually and strongly recommend the book. My teacher ranked middle hard to read but I think it's not hard to read at all, just challenging enough to not be boring.

The book is more about an Indian band first covering songs (I would say it plays in the 90’s) but later writing their own little blues and/or rock pieces. It is not like every normal book about some rock band getting famous, it’s much more than that since Sherman Alexie puts this Indian lifestyle, their problems and their view of the world in it.
This made me laugh a couple of times. I am not a professional about Indians but just some descriptions are just so hilarious!

So definitely a book you should read! Just 300 pages which makes it an easy book to read in between. This is the link to the official Sherman Alexie web http://www.fallsapart.com/resblues.html

I loooooove Germany! (Sarcasm)

As you may or may not have noticed I mention it quite a lot that I love my home country and that it is the best anyway.

I did not really notice not some people seem to be affected by that until a friend told me the other day. So I really want to clarify this: Yes, I do like my country, but I mean it more as a joke. I´m being sarcastic (I know this is the hard part to understand).

I think it just seemed to me as natural that I would mean it as a joke, but I forget sometimes that most people here didn´t grow up in an environment where you have no national proud at all. This may seem weird to you but most European and especially Germans are not proud of their country like Americans. And if then there are most likely not going to show it the way I did (in saying Germany is the best). If this is the case I would definitely double check that it is really meant that way.

I never meant to make fun of the US, because it is a recession or even depression. Germany is too and one thing is for sure Germany is not the place of heaven and if it was I would never have come over here.

So please keep in mind: I am being sarcastic a lot (even if you see no sense just take it as what it is).

Spring, plaese

This was a long winter. I don’t really know, why I write this, since everyone knows that the winter was long. But I’m just not used to have snow like this. I mean we do have some snow from where I am from, but not like this. And I really like snow, I was excited for every little bit, but in the middle of March is the point reached where I have enough.
And I’m just so desperate for leaves. Really. I wouldn’t mind another snow storm, if we had leaves (that doesn’t mean that I want another snow storm, seriously, I don’t, I jsut want the snow day).
This is probably the first year in forever but Germany is nature wise ahead. Well, maybe it is that way all the time, but I would neither notice nor care. But now. LEAVES. Please.

But well, we are getting there. The grass is getting green and all the little flowers start blooming and it smells just so wonderful. I admit I am a little bit weird, but I just can’t get over it, how wonderful that is. I hope it totally green and always warm in about a week or two. I can’t wait

Mmmm, good chocolate

My wonderful Easter bunny gave me some chocolate J a week late, but who cares if it’s good chocolate?

I don’t want to run commercials for specific chocolate companies, but I think I have to. You have to understand that I just to (back in the day) eat tons of chocolate. I always appreciated the wonderful taste of it, and also noticed some differences between different kinds, but I just ate it more or less.

And of course did I plan on doing so, when I came over. When I bit in my first Hershey's kiss I had to realize that American chocolate is not the same. (I know this is a very sad story and you better get ready with your Kleenex box, to read the rest of it.) This just sweet sugary, not smooth something has nothing to do with chocolate anymore. So I stopped eating chocolate and replaced it with coolies (not bad, not bad).

So if you really want to have some good chocolate for yourself or give it away go to Wal-Mart or wherever and really look for chocolate.

My favorite kinds are:
- Lindt from Switzerland, very smooth and delicious (on the picture is a lindore ball, my favorite)

- Rittersport from Germany, it is sold in big squares, but their variety here is just tiny
- Milka, also from Germany, it’s mostly wrapped in purple but very hard to find
- Mercy, I think from Germany, a good gift since merci means thank you in French
- Rocher, Germany, little good hazelnut balls

So, as you can see Germany has tons of good chocolate (just as Germany is good at everything ;) ).

Teen Pregnancy

This may sound really random (oh well, all the stuff I said in the beginning of the term vanished anyway. 3 posts a week is too much to have a good blog overall, which means that I have to write tons of random stuff to fill it up. But anyway:) I felt the urge to write about teen pregnancy.

Of course do also 13 year old girls in Germany get pregnant. I'm not sure if I was just never around people who get pregnant at that age, if I live in the wrong town or go the wrong school. But I was always aware that there are girls that get pregnant, even if I hardly ever saw any.

But here: You can always see about 2 girls pregnant at a High School of the size of 1500 student or more. I really wonder why. Do kinds here not protect or did no one ever told them how, because everyone was so busy telling them that sex before marriage is evil. Or do I just feel like there are more teen pregnancies in the US, because of the different school systems (the German school system is divided into 3 "intelligence" areas, which means you don't interact with too many students from other schools (intelligence levels, as mean as this sounds).

Sampling

We had to write a paper in English Perspectives about sampling and copyright. I think it is an interesting topic (which does NOT mean, that I enjoyed writing a paper, but it was at least very short).

Sampling is obviously art, so you can not forbid it or anything; the problem is just that you need existing songs to start with. That's like colors for other artists. Just that using other songs is illegal and color is not.

You cannot blame that, but there is just no other way for samplers to produce because no one (except P. Diddy) has the money and the time to buy and fight for the laws. There are actually some web sides out there where you can download a part of the song (free and legal thanks to joint-ventures with some music cooperations) to sample your own song. If you look in you can even produce a little video for you song.
This all sounds very nice, but -as always- there is a little problem. Thinkmusic.net (the website I was talking about) has just 6861 songs, and everyone can imagine that that is not a whole lot. It is not enough for anyone who wants to sample.
But I think it's a great beginning and hope that websites like this (I'm sure there are a couple more out there) advance a little more and eventually have enough songs on day.

Drinking

I'm actually not sure if I already posted over this or not, but if I did I will just do it again, assuming that no one would read all my post anyway.

This is a topic everyone always asks me about and I dig talking about.

Yes, it is true, The German drinking age is 16 for minor things (beer, wine, champagne, .etc.) and the rest (hard liqueur such as vodka) are legally to drink at 18. Of course once you are able to drink something it is not that a big issue anymore to drink harder stuff. All at once you are able to drink at 16.

This sounds probably in some to all adults and like the perfect country to all teenagers. It is just another culture and it is kind of hard to understand if you're familiar with that culture, but it is more or less like this in all of Europe. I grew up with it. Everybody grew up seeing teenager drink. it is not that a gig deal for us. I was drinking with my parents when I was fourteen. I was not totally drunk but I was drinking and it was fine with them.


I mean we have to face it. The majority of teenager under age here are consuming alcohol. Some every week-end some just occasionally, but about everyone is. So the bad part is that they drink as long there is something to drink or just drink to be drunk and not to enjoy the taste. They drink 8 shots in 5 minuets and pass out. Later they puke for a little bit and are proud of being drunk. What is that?!

They probably even drive home, when they had a little bit, which is just dangerous for everyone. And they just drive home, because they have to be home at a certain time.


Is that better?!


I seriously think that the German or European way is better. I am not saying that we don't have kids who are drinking too much, who pass out or even die, because there are. But one thing is sure, drinking and driving is NOT common in Germany. You drink or you drive not both. And you can normally trust (if not, you better look for better friends) the driver to not drink at all. Not even a beer.


I think this is something the US should be thinking about.

student teaching

I really thought about that yesterday in my wonderful Spanish 1 class (a shotout to all my freshmen friends at this point). We had a student teacher coming in twice a week, who was more or less teaching us. I really respected her job and honest effort to try, but I am missing respect to her as a teacher. It is just hard for me to see her as teacher. She is 20 years old, which means she cannot drink here, something I grew up with. I could drink with 14 and it was no deal for my family. I don't want to say that just respect someone if they're legally able to drink, but it just felt like I should see my little sister as my teacher.
And then she is teaching me Spanish. I am more than sure that her Spanish is way better than mine (a quick reminder I am in Spanish 1!) and she apparently lived in Costa Rica as well, so she has some experience so far as living in another culture. But still, I am pretty arrogant if it comes to languages. I know more languages than she does and have just a better understanding of language itself. I can even correct her in minor things. And she is just two years older!
I just wanted to point out, how hard it is for students to respect student teachers as teachers sometimes.

I found this whole story actually also kind of amusing. I just want to repeat in the end, that I really respected her job and that I wish her my best luck in the future.

Prom Dress

I tried not to for a long, long time but I can’t help it anymore. I have to write about girly stuff now. Partly because I don’t know what else to write about (dear Mr. Teacher, I think 3 posts every week are a lot, I just don’t have the time) but also because I really thought about this.

Prom dresses or Prom in general
Of course as part of my year here I’m going to prom. On one side I’m really excited for it, since it’s my only prom and it is kind of a big deal, but on the other side, why is it such a big deal anyway?

I don’t want to spend $300 on a dress I don’t like anyway. A dress I will probably just wear once. A dress I have to ship to Germany, if I want to keep it.
I’m not that a big fan of dresses anyway so I don’t see a point in that. And at the dance itself are just tons of girls with expensive dresses and fancy hair, dancing to bad music. Dancing dirty probably as well. Where is this culture going???

Okay, music and dancing is one thing, but more and more a problem is this freaking dress for me. I do not want to buy one. I also don’t want to wear an ugly one (this both together makes it almost impossible).
There should be a dress market, where you could sell your old dresses and get “new” ones cheap.

So I have about 5 weeks left to find a dress (and an hair appointment, but that should be fairly easy), it’s just not helping a lot, that I don’t want to think about that dance at all, since it is on my last week-end here :(.

Women in media

Every Friday in Econ is "market Friday" that means you can bring in a newspaper article somehow related to Economics for extra credit. I brought in an article about the G20 meeting that just was last week in London and of course did I take one of a German website. So there was this picture of Angela Merkel (German chancellor, picture).
It is really mean the way media portrays women, especially in politics. I'm not the biggest feminist or anything but you have to admit that this is somehow not fair anymore. When men get older they are "wise". But women just get wrinkly, fed and ugly. So it's okay for men to get a beer belly and lose their hair, but women are not allowed to have the tiniest little bit of grey in their hair?
That is not fair.

I have to say that a lot of pictures of Angela Merkel are really funny. She never seems to smile or be happy. But this should still not affect in any way my view on her job, her job as the leader of a country. But it does. As much as I try not to (and I think I’m pretty good with that), it still does affect my view on her just as it affect everyone elses.
If you still see someone looking dump and weak, how should you ever have the confidence in this someone to be the right person for the biggest job a country has?

I just want to say that women have it so much harder in politics (not just Mrs. Merkel, also Sarah Palin or anyone else), which is not fair talking about equal rights for men and woman.