And I don't really have any excuses as to why either because I had this whole week and I have the whole of next week for vacation. Now a LOT has happened... and as many of you know, I have quite a difficult time being brief, so instead, I am going to write two posts tonight.
In this one I will be detailing the irritation with me getting my Aufenthaltserlaubnis or, for those of you who can't really pronounce that, let alone understand what the hell it means, the peice of paper that says that I can stay for the whole year for studying and such.
I need this little peice of paper because if I do not, I am officially a tourist and after three months they can deport me. And I know you are thinking,"Deni Anne, how on earth could you, Miss Never-got-a-detention-in-her-life Tobin, possibly have ever been denied staying in Germany for a year when all you want to do is learn, AND you don't cost the German government a penny, IN FACT you are giving more money to the government?"
Well, (I would say) first that was a horrendous run-on sentence, and secondly, because Baden-Wurtemburg is very funny.
A few weeks ago my host family mom scheduled an appointment for us to apply for this Aufenthaltserlaubnis. What happened was this: Katerina (my guest Family mom) called the Auslander office thing at 6 in the morning to accomodate them. She explained about how we had a scheduled date for getting an Aufhaltserlaubnis, how I am a private exchange student, etc. The woman proceeded to say something along the lines of, "You cannot have an Aufhaltserlaubnis because she is not an exchange student working with an official exchange program or school program." I'm not sure how the rest of the call went but Katerina was very angry about it all. As I awoke that morning (8 minutes earlier than I had planned) she explained to my bleary-eyed unshowered person what was going on. Later that day she explained it to Christian (my guest family dad).
Christian also knew (because he researched it before I came) that the law states something similar to: When you are in Deutschland studying you can stay, because it costs next to nothing for the government to have you so it isn't really a problem. Katerina and I have also already got this thing signed that I am living now in Rommelshausen, and so Waiblingen, our "county" sent us a letter that told us I must attend a school or I am breaking the law. At that point I was already attending Fredreich Schiller Gymnasium. Then Christian, who is very good at reasoning things out, called the boss of the lady that Katerina spoke with on Monday and explained to her everything that was going on. First she said that in the states of germany they have special regulations of how they should read the law. In Baden-Wurtemburg the law previously described is more specific and says basically that they do not except a lot of exchange students unless they are in these special programs or with a school for these programs. Christian then told her about how I am attending a school like we were told I must and she pretended not to hear him because at the time in the STATE of Baden-Wurtemburg I was only a tourist. Meaning I may only be here for three months and then they must deport me. Even though in the TOWN I was living here officially.
After all the careful stepping and fingernail biting, we finally got a new meeting to apply for the Aufenthaltserlaubnis. We went, and the lady we were supposed to meet was mysteriously sick, she was the first lady we talked to, the one who said that I couldn't stay at all and deportation was the only option. Which we thought was great because we went to this other lady who was very nice and even, upon hearing about what had happened with her colleague, hinted that she would probably get in trouble for doing that. the whole application process took about an hour, or less, and dashed my hopes of missing gym class. A few days later i was approved and now i have this cool thingy in my passport. It's pretty cool.
The only really lame part about me finally getting it was, I was classified as a "special case" meaning normally, they wouldn't let a private exchange happen, and they let me because they felt like it.
So now it's kind of funny. i was almost deported from a country, guys! And for what? Wanting to learn to speak their language.What a criminal I am!
Donnerstag, 28. Oktober 2010
Dienstag, 12. Oktober 2010
The redhead doesn't know what to name this one....
What happened since last thursday?
I went to Ludwigsburg! (That place with the freakin' huge garden.)
Twas quite fun with my host mom and the babykins. We went to the garden there first and stayed to look around. They had creative entirely pumpkin- and gord-carved masterpeices and huge scultures made of pumpkins for fall. Then we went into Märchenland. For those who do not know what the heck that is it is basically an old Fairy tale land that takes all the Brother's Grimm fairy tales and other popular ones and brings them alive in little mechanical displays that kids go nuts over. It was cute. I really can't wait until next year when my nephew comes over because he might beable to actually enjoy it.
Sunday we hung out and did nothing of great significance besides watching Tatort.
Monday I had my first English Vocabulary test, which I am sad to report I got stumped on two questions with. I couldn't think of a great synonym for "to try very hard" so I just put "attempt with great determination", which isn't wrong but I'm sure isn't what everyone else put down.
After school we had soccer practice, where we ran alot and on our water breaks belted dumb pop songs at the top of our lungs so everyone stared.
Today, I was almost late to school, because my bike broke five minutes before I was supposed to be there and my hair looked like I had recently been in a wind storm at sea.
By the end of the day everything was cool though. I volunteered for the first time in my bio class, fixed my bike, and had a very yummy supper. As we explained to my host dad about the Visa (we were speaking in English) he said,"Why did they say we can't keep you?" which made me sound like a lost puppy they were hoping to keep and made me laugh.
Babysitting and math homework!
I went to Ludwigsburg! (That place with the freakin' huge garden.)
Twas quite fun with my host mom and the babykins. We went to the garden there first and stayed to look around. They had creative entirely pumpkin- and gord-carved masterpeices and huge scultures made of pumpkins for fall. Then we went into Märchenland. For those who do not know what the heck that is it is basically an old Fairy tale land that takes all the Brother's Grimm fairy tales and other popular ones and brings them alive in little mechanical displays that kids go nuts over. It was cute. I really can't wait until next year when my nephew comes over because he might beable to actually enjoy it.
Sunday we hung out and did nothing of great significance besides watching Tatort.
Monday I had my first English Vocabulary test, which I am sad to report I got stumped on two questions with. I couldn't think of a great synonym for "to try very hard" so I just put "attempt with great determination", which isn't wrong but I'm sure isn't what everyone else put down.
After school we had soccer practice, where we ran alot and on our water breaks belted dumb pop songs at the top of our lungs so everyone stared.
Today, I was almost late to school, because my bike broke five minutes before I was supposed to be there and my hair looked like I had recently been in a wind storm at sea.
By the end of the day everything was cool though. I volunteered for the first time in my bio class, fixed my bike, and had a very yummy supper. As we explained to my host dad about the Visa (we were speaking in English) he said,"Why did they say we can't keep you?" which made me sound like a lost puppy they were hoping to keep and made me laugh.
Babysitting and math homework!
Donnerstag, 7. Oktober 2010
The redhead should write a long post but...
...she has a butt ton of homework, so here's a brief summary:
Today, Thursday, was my friggin' long day which means ten hours in school .(Yuck)
I had a very good sleep last night though about 9 hours! Score.
I biked to school, got there just in time for Religion, which was okish. I learn a lot of cool words in that class.
In Politik we talked about Versicherung or Insurance for various things in Germany. Which was cool because frankly, I like their insurance system, nay, I like their freakin' government system better than ours.
French... not gonna lie, I day-dreamed through. No grade= virtually no motivation to pay attention... at all.
Math was mathy. Lunch was yummy. NWT was fantastically boring as usually, except for the part where we play with fire. Chemistry was pretty good today because I understood things much better. Basically the school day was awfully unremarkable.
On the way home: My bike chain freaked out and twisted this strange way, then I fixed it with the fantastical skills acquired from my father. then later somehow managed to run into a parked car.... (clumsiness points= another flawless ten) But luckily I only hit the rear view mirror, the owner was right there and he said it was ok and smiled at me and told me to go home. He was very nice, I liked him. Then I got home, saw a cute baby, understood my homework, and got MOCKINGJAY in the mail a DAY after I ordered it! Go amazon. More updates coming soon... sorry for this post, i know it's kind of boring and dumb but I have deutsch homework!
Today, Thursday, was my friggin' long day which means ten hours in school .(Yuck)
I had a very good sleep last night though about 9 hours! Score.
I biked to school, got there just in time for Religion, which was okish. I learn a lot of cool words in that class.
In Politik we talked about Versicherung or Insurance for various things in Germany. Which was cool because frankly, I like their insurance system, nay, I like their freakin' government system better than ours.
French... not gonna lie, I day-dreamed through. No grade= virtually no motivation to pay attention... at all.
Math was mathy. Lunch was yummy. NWT was fantastically boring as usually, except for the part where we play with fire. Chemistry was pretty good today because I understood things much better. Basically the school day was awfully unremarkable.
On the way home: My bike chain freaked out and twisted this strange way, then I fixed it with the fantastical skills acquired from my father. then later somehow managed to run into a parked car.... (clumsiness points= another flawless ten) But luckily I only hit the rear view mirror, the owner was right there and he said it was ok and smiled at me and told me to go home. He was very nice, I liked him. Then I got home, saw a cute baby, understood my homework, and got MOCKINGJAY in the mail a DAY after I ordered it! Go amazon. More updates coming soon... sorry for this post, i know it's kind of boring and dumb but I have deutsch homework!
Samstag, 2. Oktober 2010
The redhead had 29 freakin' views yesterday.
Woah. Go people. it's nice to see in the stats how many views I have each day, but I would surely enjoy comments and feedback when anybody feels like it....
But aside from blog craziness, I had a week of craziness. Well, not really, it was pretty typical apart from it being the week of my Libra Gastfamilievater's Geburtstag (My host family dad's birthday, yo!). So, the most important adventures of the week included cookies, cake, chocolate, and Schnittzel eating! Some of the less pleasurable adventures, however, are brand new additions to our favorite series,"The redhead is the clumsiest person on the face of the earth." In this addition we will visit the notion of how a person could possibly accidentally drop their toothbrush in the toillet while in the midst of brushing their teeth. And how someone can get a flat tire on their bicycle by no apparent means.
Let start from the beginning. this week was pretty awesome as far as school, I understand my math class on a regular basis now, and because of that it has certaining become my favorite class. My other elected favorites at this point are Politik and Physik. I know, your thinking, "Politik? Wouldn't that be really hard with all the big German words and slightly different Democratic Socialist government?" And I would say,"Why, yes, however, I have the most fantastic Politik teacher who can speaks German the entire class, but will translate crazy big complicated words for me so that I understand and explains differences between American government and German government when they arise. Plus she can keep the entire class actually quiet. A quiet class at perfect attention here is quite a feat. Physik, I like because last year in German class we did this awesome thing where we studied what we were doing in Physical Science in German class so, not only do I know basically everything we're doing, I also know all the german words for those things! 50 gold stars for Herr Wert yo!
Tuesday, I got to skype chat with my two sisters, my nephew, and then later on in the evening, my mommy and daddy! That was great! I loved seeing their faces and hearing their voices together like they were there. However, I certainly felt the distance between us as my nephew jumped up and down and screamed in joy and asked if I could read him a book. I certainly made me cry. We used to read books over and over again, with him sitting on my lap and one day, he won't fit anymore. One day he won't want to read books anymore and I'm missing a whole year of it.
Wednesday, was my host family dad's birthday as I disclosed before. I was also the day I rode my bike to school, like every other day, but found on my return trip that I had to walk because I had a flat tire. How, may you ask, did I get a flat tire? I have no freaking clue. But then I got home, ate lunch, did homework, and we were off to Onkel Otto's Schnittzel joint. (Which is supposedly the home of the best schnittzel around.) We got lost and the baby was angry and screamed the entire way, but it made the schnittzel taste that much better once we got there, as the baby slept. And to top it all, after all our eating, as I finished brushing my teeth and went to go rinse my mouth out, I thought I had placed my toothbrush on the ledge above the sink, but instead as I stooped to cup water to my mouth, I heard an ominous sliding, clattering, and plunk. And found as I looked up with my shining clean fresh mouth, that my toothbrush was currently taking a bath in the toilet. Awesome. And it's another ten from the judges!
Luckily, my gastfamilie had an extra toothbrush. Today, has been pretty awesome so farsince I slept ten hours, woke and ate amazing jam for breakfast and now I'm talking to you lovely people. First soccer game I play in today! Hope it doesn't freakin' rain!
But aside from blog craziness, I had a week of craziness. Well, not really, it was pretty typical apart from it being the week of my Libra Gastfamilievater's Geburtstag (My host family dad's birthday, yo!). So, the most important adventures of the week included cookies, cake, chocolate, and Schnittzel eating! Some of the less pleasurable adventures, however, are brand new additions to our favorite series,"The redhead is the clumsiest person on the face of the earth." In this addition we will visit the notion of how a person could possibly accidentally drop their toothbrush in the toillet while in the midst of brushing their teeth. And how someone can get a flat tire on their bicycle by no apparent means.
Let start from the beginning. this week was pretty awesome as far as school, I understand my math class on a regular basis now, and because of that it has certaining become my favorite class. My other elected favorites at this point are Politik and Physik. I know, your thinking, "Politik? Wouldn't that be really hard with all the big German words and slightly different Democratic Socialist government?" And I would say,"Why, yes, however, I have the most fantastic Politik teacher who can speaks German the entire class, but will translate crazy big complicated words for me so that I understand and explains differences between American government and German government when they arise. Plus she can keep the entire class actually quiet. A quiet class at perfect attention here is quite a feat. Physik, I like because last year in German class we did this awesome thing where we studied what we were doing in Physical Science in German class so, not only do I know basically everything we're doing, I also know all the german words for those things! 50 gold stars for Herr Wert yo!
Tuesday, I got to skype chat with my two sisters, my nephew, and then later on in the evening, my mommy and daddy! That was great! I loved seeing their faces and hearing their voices together like they were there. However, I certainly felt the distance between us as my nephew jumped up and down and screamed in joy and asked if I could read him a book. I certainly made me cry. We used to read books over and over again, with him sitting on my lap and one day, he won't fit anymore. One day he won't want to read books anymore and I'm missing a whole year of it.
Wednesday, was my host family dad's birthday as I disclosed before. I was also the day I rode my bike to school, like every other day, but found on my return trip that I had to walk because I had a flat tire. How, may you ask, did I get a flat tire? I have no freaking clue. But then I got home, ate lunch, did homework, and we were off to Onkel Otto's Schnittzel joint. (Which is supposedly the home of the best schnittzel around.) We got lost and the baby was angry and screamed the entire way, but it made the schnittzel taste that much better once we got there, as the baby slept. And to top it all, after all our eating, as I finished brushing my teeth and went to go rinse my mouth out, I thought I had placed my toothbrush on the ledge above the sink, but instead as I stooped to cup water to my mouth, I heard an ominous sliding, clattering, and plunk. And found as I looked up with my shining clean fresh mouth, that my toothbrush was currently taking a bath in the toilet. Awesome. And it's another ten from the judges!
Luckily, my gastfamilie had an extra toothbrush. Today, has been pretty awesome so farsince I slept ten hours, woke and ate amazing jam for breakfast and now I'm talking to you lovely people. First soccer game I play in today! Hope it doesn't freakin' rain!
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