Oh yeah, I have a Blog

It has been awhile, so I guess I should update this. Not too much has been going on, but it all has accumulated into something sort of blog-worthy.

First and foremost, SPRING HAS FINALLY COME! (Sort of, it comes and goes). But the fact remains, I have seen the SUN!! And so with that comes spring activities. There was an International Trick Filmfest (film festival) in Stuttgart, which was pretty cool. There was this huge screen set up at the Schlossplatz where you could just sit on the grass and watch lots of short films. It was pretty cool, though I didn’t see too much from it, partly due to rainy weather. There was/is also a Frühlingsfest (spring festival), which is like Oktoberfest, but… in the spring. So I have seen a lot of people running around in Lederhosen and Dirndls. Which is highly amusing.

I actually went jogging! That was cool… though it made me realize how out of shape I am and how much weight I have gained (I still blame the bread). But the sun has done wonderful things for me, I feel so much more active and happy when the sun shines in comparison to the days when the sky is a solid block of gray clouds.

However, what is NOT helping my productivity is that I found out how to watch stuff on Hulu and Netflix (which you normally can’t do in Germany due to some copyright law). And it’s LEGAL, mind you. So I may have been spending a little too much time watching stuff and procrastinating the homework that I usually don’t do anyways.

That does not mean that I have been entirely unproductive. Example #1: I did most of my math homework once and gave some correct answers in class (which I think totally surprised everyone). The bad news is now the teacher expects me to have done my homework (which I admit I hadn’t been doing). But in other classes I really do pay attention! Even if it is German class and they’re talking about Goethe’s Faust (which is like the German Shakespeare) and I have no idea what is going on, or English class talking about grammar that I have known since elementary school, or ethics class talking about what some philosopher/scholar said. Example #2: I’m in the school’s orchestra, which is playing the music for the school play. It’s not a musical; (speaking of Shakespeare…) it’s actually Romeo and Juliet. So that’s cool, and I have been enjoying participating and doing all the rehearsals. Considering the school is so small, the theater program is rather good. Funny stories: there’s a fighting scene between Mercutio and Tybalt (Mercutio dies) and they have everything all choreographed. At one point, Tybalt is on the ground and vaults Mercutio over his head in a roll sort of thing. Mercutio unfortunately ran into the wall during this rehearsal, but continued trying to go through the scene while limping/hopping around. What makes this funny is that the guys are wearing Elizabethan style tights, and his were unfortunately not tight enough. So as he is hopping around, fighting for his life against Tybalt, his pants are sagging and his underwear is showing. The director had pity and told them to skip to the part where he dies. Another amusing moment was went Romeo and Benvolio bonked heads really hard.  And another was when the protective cup thing Benvolio was wearing was hit and made a very loud crack sound. Rehearsals are so amusing.

Ah, and while we are speaking about theater. I have done some thinking about the job I want to have. Before, I only had this general idea of something art related, so I figured I would be an art major. But I have decided I want to do set designing for theater or films, and that’s a theater major! So… basically I have told everyone the wrong thing about what I’m going to do with my life and I’m actually going to be a very artsy theatre major. Until further notice.

So yeah… That’s basically all that’s going on. It’s weird to think I only have about a month and a half left. In some ways, I feel like I’ve been here long enough. Experienced a lot, learned a lot, met good people, etc., but I’ve had enough and am ready to go back to America (and lose the weight I’ve gained, because I’ll go back to my usual eating habits and my body can stop freaking out about how much German food I consume). But in other ways, I’m thinking, “WHAT?! Only a month and a half?! But there’s so much I haven’t done or seen yet!” Even though some things have really sucked (pardon my French…), I don’t want to go. But I do… But I don’t. Ha. In any case, I’m trying to enjoy the rest of my exchange as much as possible.