8th graders....LOL!!!

So not much new is going on. Still busy with school and things. However today i started my internship helping to teach english at a gymnasium in the area of dortmund. i've been assigned to 8th graders because that is the year when they begin learning american culture and american english. up until then it's more of a british focus. The students are currently working on projects about different things in america such as sports, famous people, popular states or cities, historical aspects such as the indians and the civil war and so on. My job today was to go around and simply speak to the students about their projects and get them speaking english. Some of these students were the sweetest kids ever, but there were others who complete opposite. no doubt that they got a little nervous because i'm a native speaker and i've been through that and know how it feels, but you all know how kids that age can be... lol!! i'm actually quite excited about going back. i think it's going to be really cool working with the kids and give them the opportunity to strengthen their english speaking skills!

Oh and i've posted more pictures. The latest two entries from the activities and random pics taken at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Germany.

school and such

so school has now started and all of my classes are being taught in german. i'm actually understanding more then i thought i would though sometimes it's still rather difficult. especially when we are suppose to read some huge college level text in german and then discuss this text that i could barely understand in the first place. then it gets more difficult. however, all of my professors are nice and understanding and want to help me get through the course. i am now in my third week of class and it seems that every week it becomes easier and easier to understand. my schedule is set up so that i only have one class a day except on wednesday, and each class lasts a little less then two hours. i only attend each class one time during the week so by the end of the semester we will only have gone to class about 13 times. and occasionally the class will be canceled which means that i don't have to worry about it for another week. it's a lot different then the system back at home. has it's good and it's bad... who knows which is better. i haven't decided yet.

other then school i haven't been up to much. i did go on a few more tours of places since my last post, but most of them were kinda boring so i wont go into details. i'll just post the pix. mostly we will watch movies or go into the city and hang out. i've been trying to read twilight in german, and am hoping to get that finished before the movie comes out. i've also located the lds ward over here and have been going to family home evening, institute and church on sunday. i've met a few young adults here in the area and we always get together after our lessons and play games. it always turns into fun. we also have 2 sets of elders here in the area and they are also allowed to come. they are all a fun group of ppl. we also have an older couple here serving a mission and they are also fun. they actually come from slc as well. this week we taught elder diedrich how to play phase 10 and he loved it! i don't have any pics from there just yet, but i'll work on getting some.

i hope everything is well with everyone!! i miss you all! i wish i could come home and visit! even though i love german food especially bratwurst, i'm really craving food from america. it's kinda weird the things that you begin to miss after being away for so long. all the americans here just sit and talk about all the stuff we miss and it's kinda funny. we were able to watch a college football game last weekend on someones computer and it made me really miss going to utah's football games and all of the school spirit. we don't have that here at all...

catch up

so i have finally been able to get internet in my room and have uploaded a few pics to my photo blog which i have a link to right off to the side named pix.

the last two weeks have been pretty crazy trying to get all of the paperwork filled out and starting my german class which is going really well. my living situation is only ok but i can't complain too much, this a picture from my bedroom window. we have a cute little path leading to the front entrance of our building. i live only 10 min. away from campus by foot so everything is pretty close by. we have a few small shops just minutes away which includes a bakery, and grocery store and like a mini mart type of thing. it's really convenient. The s-bahn is on campus which is what i use to get to the middle of the city where we spend most of our time when we aren't in class or taking a tour of something.

the roommate situation could be better but at the same time i've really lucked out. one of my roommates comes from Tennessee and we get along really well. we pretty much do everything together. since our schedules are pretty much the same we always walk everywhere together and chill during our free time. we have quite a few americans here and we group together during lunch and our other free time. another one of my roommates comes from camaroon. she speaks only french and german which has been good because it forces me to speak in german, but her french accent comes through really strong and is really hard to understand most of the time. the other thing is that she has a 1 month old child that lives with use here in our small quarters. the only time that it's really a problem is during the day cuz she cries alot, but she stays pretty quiet during the night. my fourth roommate just arrived two days ago so i haven't had much time to talk to her, but she seems sweet. she comes from spain.

like i said earlier we've been doing a lot of tours lately. our first was a tour of dortmund which i have posted pictures of. we walked to westfahlen park and went up the tower. saw the rosarium and then made our way to the hafen, which is the only port in dortmund. after that we walked all the way into the middle of the city and saw some cool churches, but pics were forbidden so sry. it was a pretty long walk and i didn't enjoy most of it, but it did give me a chance to see different parts of dortmund.

the next tour we did was of the brewery museum. i will post more pix from that as soon as i correlate with one of my friend and get some pix off his camera. it was pretty cool. but the tour was in german and about half way through my brain got too tired to listen. we met some pretty cool workers that kept us laughing i'm pretty sure we got a pic with them but like i said it's on my friends camera.

i've also had the opportunity to go to a soccer game, but it wasn't too exciting. it was an international game so there weren't very many ppl there. but my ticket was basically like a press pass so i was able to go pretty much everywhere in the stadium. it was pretty cool. my friend phillip is going to try and get tickets for the game on tuesday which should be more exciting. i 'll have to let you know. well i have to get going. we are grillin tonight and everyone is suppose to be meeting right now. f

the weekend

so i have gotten through my first weekend in germany. i didn't do much because i'm still feeling or felt the jet lag somewhat, but on friday i watched german tv with my roomates and later another exchange student came to hang out. they have some really weird shows over here and tv is still a little bit hard to understand. though i haven't seen it yet during this visit. i'm looking forward to watching pimp my fahrrad. which is like mtv's version of pimp my car but fahrrad means bicycle. kinda funny, idk. satuday all of the exchange students from amerika and also europe met in a student cafe on campus. i get to meet a few ppl and had a good time. but sunday was the most boring day so far. i know it's not much different from utah, but absolutely nothing is open here on sundays. all there is to do is walk around and sleep. it was kind of nice to have a day off finally, but it went by so slow and since i took so many naps i couldn't sleep very well during the night which sucked because i had a test this morning. all went well though. the test was pretty easy. i just had to introduce someone from another country in front of all the exchange students and then write a short essay. in the end i've been place in the highest level for my intensive german course which will last the next month. pretty proud of that. me and my roomate are the only americans to get into the highest class. we're excited about that. we've been speaking so much german in our dorm and when we visit the city!

...

the days are getting by a little easier now. everyday i speak more and more german and get a little bit more comfortable with it. not that i speak well by any means, but i'm trying and will hopefully learn fast. here they have something called a dortmund double, which are two students that are assigned to one international student to help them around the city and the university. i met mine for the first time yesterday. they were really cool! all of the international students and there doubles met up for italian ice cream yesterday and my doubles and i spoke german the entire time. i found out later that all the other american students had been speaking english the entire time. so i'm proud of myself for stepping out of the box. it feels kinda cool, but hard to explain. my doubles have an extra tv that they are going to let me use which will be cool also. i think it will help with my german.

mmm... the crazyness...

Sry i couldn't write very much the first day. it was a little crazy over here, getting into my dorm and everything else. the flight over went well except for the turbulance and the small space for sitting which limited my sleeping. i was on a total of two planes, the first which was horribly small lasted 2 hr and 40 min and the second though bigger still not much more comfortable for 7 hr and 50 min. had only two hours of darkness and arrived at 7:30 am with a busy day ahead. i got to know the campus just a little and got situated in my room. i've had to rely on my english alot cuz it's the fastest way of communication when there is so much to say, but today i have been speaking quite a bit and did most of the talking to get my library card which i am proud of. the food here is a little interesting. i wouldn't say that it's bad, but it's going to take some getting use to. currently i only have access to the internet through the library, but should be getting it in my dorm room sometime next week so until then i wont be able to post any pictures.

Ich bin endlich in Dortmund!

Hey! just wanted to let you all know that i've arrived! more to come later! tschüss

It's me!

Hi there all!! Just getting ready to depart on my wonderful adventure to Germany as a foreign exchange student! Though i'm very excited to get over there this pic shows my inner feelings. I still have about six weeks left till I leave but I'm getting more nervous and excited for it every day! I hope you all enjoy reading as I update my page during my time there. It's going to be one crazy journey. I think the one thing I'm worried about most is learning the language. Yes I've taken years of German, but it's just not the same learning in class as it is speaking to natives. Don't worry I'll make sure to let you all know once I start dreaming in German as that is the best way to tell when you're finally getting it. Hope everything goes well for you back here at home and hope to hear from you all often. I'm sure that I will get homesick while away. Hope you all enjoy!