OH MY GOD! I forgot to put the chess piece pictures up! I'll do that now. The first rook is at the tip of the knife, the last is at the end of the knife. The first 8 pawns are in the first row, the last ones in the second row, #1 is on your right side,  #9 is behind it,  #16 is the last one on the left. My favorite is #5, my second favorite is #1, which is the only one I made in Norway. Please tell me which one is each of your favorites; it's very important. Also, Thomas, Elsie's dad, bought me that unbelievably beautiful and wonderfully effective knife in Norway, up at the mountain farm, you can see the Norwegian colors on the end, thank you so so so much Thomas!

By the way, Beedemort is still here. I think I'm overusing his name a bit, and the entire subject, quite frankly. Sorry about that.

Today, a bee got stuck in the shoulder of my shirt and it kept buzzing louder and louder and I thought it was going to sting me, so I threw my whole shirt to the ground, and it still hung on! But eventually it crawled of dizzily and I was quite angry at it so I am very sorry to say that I stepped on it. I am really really sorry, bee. I swear I will never kill another bug again; apart from piosonous ones and ants.

I love you all so very much, again. And good night!

Love Love Love Love Love, Hanna

Hey Guys,

Sorry I haven't written on this in such a long time. The news is; last weekend, on Sunday when it was boiling hot, me and the Kler's went to a lake that was super cool. Literally cool, and there were a lot of people and everything. A lot of people, especially women, were just changing right there on the grass in front of everyone else. No one really looked, though, but even though I kind-of expected that was how it worked at a public water place like that, it was still a bit weird because I've only experienced that  kind of stuff once or twice in my life, and one time was earlier this summer, a bit. Anyway, I changed that way with my top half but not my bottom half, so that was a nice change. Lol, get it? :)

Yeah, so, I really loved that and I've also been loving biking to and from school every day. My favorite part of that is when I get the occasional rush of adrenaline and excitement when I think about something, and I can exert that through the biking. I actually get those weird rushes every once in a while, even when I was back in Irvine, but there I would just clench my fist or something. Some of you might have seen me do that, or not, because I tried to make it inconspicuous, I don't know why. But sometimes bad emotions like deep sadness or momentary anger come over me, and with the sadness, I just hunch, but with anger I fist up too. I made that phrase up just now. :)

German is a bit easier to speak, and the tiniest bit easier to understand, but I'm surprised that the speaking is catching up the understanding while the understanding is at an almost-standstill. It's usually the opposite. And you know what's weird, Spanish is actually more frustrating than German at this point. I guess I'm getting more and more used to German, but not Spanish. And I wasn't really aware of having to start learning German because I knew some of it my whole life, but I'm having to learn Spanish from scratch. I honestly thought it would be easier than this.

It seems like everybody in the class, except for me and a few other people, totally understand the language. When most of the class are able to speak more than one word of Spanish to the teacher, but a whole sentence and maybe more, I feel like they've already learned Spanish I. I seriously don't know how it got to that point. We've had four classes, each 1 and a half hours long, in which we've learned some vocab words and some sentences, but virtually everyone in the class is able to speak as if they know the whole language. They do it by mixing verbs, nouns, conjunctions, and whatever else into several correct sentences. I only understand 0-4 or so words in their whole conversation. Grrrr. No thoughts similar to; 'have you been paying full attention in class', or, 'you should study at home more', should be going through anyone's mind right now.

Now for some random stuff. At night, my companion, other than Kino, is a small, round green alarm clock. It ticks. At first, I thought this would be a problem. But then I figured I would give it a few nights and see if I got used to it. I'm happy to announce that I have. I just hope I'll be able to sleep without one after this year. I neither dislike nor like the ticking, but perhaps I will love it by the end of the year, who knows?

I have now completed twenty oh my god there's a bee in my room, I just saw it, it loves my chandelier. I'm sure we'll beecome great friends by the end of the night. >:) No, I'm just kidding. It's harmless. Anyway, as I was saying, I have now completed 20/32 chess pieces. All the pawns and rooks are finished. I will try to put a picture up but I don't know if it'll work. So, yeah, I got creative with the rooks' heads because I could. What I mean is that Pamela's dad got some amazingly wonderful wood for me to build the pieces out of; it's their exact circumference, and it's long. I've fallen in love with it, yet we only just met a couple of days ago, Elsie. ;) Next, I'm going to do the bishops because I know ok the bee's buzzing is annoying, maybe this will have to end like Harry Potter 7, if I can carve wands for us both. I'm gonna name the bee Beedemort.

Um, so, yeah, the bishops are going to be cones with a slash each in the side near the top. Those'll be easier than the knights, cause I have no idea what to do for them. Do you guys think I should make a video of me carving and put it on here? I know how, but I warn you, it takes me a half and hour to forty-five minutes to make one piece, maybe more if it's a knight, queen, or king. Oh look, Beedemort's figured out where the window is, but sadly, it's closed. Poor Beedemort, he'll just have to work with the lightbulbs for now.

I'm also really wanting to play Sims again. I even wrote down a character description and made a house design in my notebook. You guys should see that stuff; it's ingenious, if I do say so myself. I really want to create them, but even if I can get a hold of some kind of Sims game, Charley (my laptop) wouldn't be able to handle it. Also, my room is clean. It had gotten pretty messy. Oh, I don't know if I mentioned last time that one of my short stories, Purification, isn't good, Pamela, and kind-of me too, found big flaws in it, but I haven't been in a writing mood as of late, so I haven't really gone through and corrected it. So, be prepared for stupidness if you want to read that one, but the other ones, which are all about more oddball or extreme topics, are up to scratch, if you want to check them out. <:)

Goodnight everyone. Goodnight Beedemort. Oh, also, there's a green bug hanging out on the ceiling in my bathroom. It looks like a leaf, but I don't know what to call it yet. So, goodnight, bathroom bug. Yay, it's name is now BB (bathroom bug). I hope my new bug friends survive till the next post, so I can discuss them again, but Beedemort probably won't. I'll set him free after I finish this post, and maybe BB too, but he doesn't seem freaked out like his buddy is.

I love you all so so so much!
Love Hanna

P.S: Oh, look, I've got a new callous too! Yay! :D (it's on the middle section of the inside of my right fore finger, just in case anybody wanted to know)

Thanks for the comments, you guys! I loved them! When I wrote that first entry, I hadn't completed the whole schoolweek yet, so here's the highlights of the rest:


I had English and Spanish class, and Philosophie, Geography, plus more classes that I had already been in earlier in the week. I absolutely loved English class; it was really fun and simple. We first had to write a short article about a high school swimming race, and how we imagined it. There were a list of words that were optinional to put in the article, and all those who read aloud put in those words, except for me. I felt so special because I could play with the language and didn't have to stick with the basics. But then, it's kind of the opposite in every other class, so I guess I'm allowed to show off a bit in that class. I wrote this:

Sims High School Shark Steals Gold for Fourth Year

On March 3rd, Woodbridge High School hosted the Varsity League Final for all their neighboring schools. With over 1,000 people packed into the stand, it was the biggest turn-out in five years! Of course, the infamous senior Jesse Malik won by his usual 8 seconds. No other boy in any of the seven heats had a chance against what Malik's teammates nicknamed him; the shark. As for the woman's race, the shark's own girlfriend, Stephenie Cardew, claimed first prize. Sims High School swim coach comments, "They must have some system worked out that I don't know about. I only wish they would share the secret with me and the rest of the team." Second place winner, Todd Esher, says grudgingly, "They're just afraid of competition." It might or might not be true, but unfortunately, we'll never know that or their suspected secret. Overall, everyone is amazed by the 17th anual Varsity League swim Final results!

It was pretty fun to write. I read it aloud and it was awesome. We then read the real short story of a swim race, compared them, and our homework is to come up with an ending for the real story. Oh, yeah, the actual story was that there were two boys, Gordon and the main character who were going to race in a high school competition. The main character was always a bit faster than Gordon but he overheard Gordon's father threatening to beat his son up if he didn't win. The main character lets him win but has mixed feelings about it afterwards. My ending is that Gordon resents the main character's choice and he says he doesn't need any help with his problems. And the main character then thinks as Gordon's walking away; fine, then next time I'll let you handle your own problems, and your dad. It'll be so cool to read that to everyone on Monday.

Spanish class was good, but at first I wondered if I was in the wrong Spanish, the one for 12th graders, because the teacher spoke Spanish to us for the first five or ten minutes, but no one else looked like they didn't have a clue what was going on. For the whole class we wrote down words that we already knew in Spanish and our homework is to memorize the vocab. I did. And I told the teacher to put espanol (I don't know how to do the wierd thing above the n), and fiesta. Three fourths of the way through the class, the teacher heard that I had somewhat of an accent when I said some German word. I thought, damn it! I almost made it the whole way through without her guessing. Oh well. That's kind of a game I've played with half my teachers so far, but most of them already knew that they had a foreign student in their class. They just didn't know who it was.

Philosophie was all right. On the good side, I understood most of what the teacher said, and he talked really fast. I mean, like, really really fast. The downside is that I didn't understand any important words, which were all huge, on the text he gave us to read. Fortunately, he guessed who I was before we all had to read our analysis of the text aloud.

Last night, I was telling Pamela and Thorsten about the James story, which I'm quite sure you all know the contents of very well by now, I hope, and was inspired to read them a short story I had written in tenth grade called White Hell. I don't think you've all heard of it, but I'm quite proud of it. It's about a psycho who is in a prison that is all white. Throughout the story, he becomes more and more greedy for something to interrupt the constant whiteness and the silence of his life, and I won't give away the ending, but it's exciting. If you want to read it, comment and I'll send it to you.

Anyway, after I'd read them that, Thorsten suggested that I maybe write a handful of short stories to then publish together in one book. That is a really good idea. So, since then, I've written two more stories, one about a mentally disturbed guy and one about a quirky, go-with-the-flow kind of guy. One has to know English grammer fairly well to read the one about the mentally disturbed guy, who's name is Finni, because he is the narrorator and doesn't think or talk clearly, ever. I kind-of wanted to write it in that way to even out my struggles with German. I wanted to make something that requires English skills, like an elite English club, where only those who are able to read and understand it are allowed. I don't want to be exclusive, though, as long as you are my friend or relative, or both.

That was a tiny glimpse of my mischivious side, by the way. I love writing so much. It's absolutely, positively, one of the best forms of expression anyone could have ever come up with. I'm glad I went to kindergarden. Oh, also, I made the fifth pawn (Bauer) tonight. Imagine I'm taking a step closer to you, leaning inward slightly, and whispering to you now; that's German by the way, the word Bauer. I think you can guess what it means. I would, in fact, tell this to those of you who already knew what it meant merely to have the chance to say those two particular sentances to you in mine and your lifetime, because the opportunity to tell you such a thing would hardly present itself again, except if one of us created the words to set up the scenario ourselves, but that would just mean wasted words would litter our ever too short futures.

Okay, so that weird part at the end of the last paragraph, the one I'm sure you noticed, is the kind of writing you'll find in the short story I've named Ginger, for now, about that strange guy who goes with the flow. The other one, about Finni, I've named Pink Clouds for the time being. I feel dramatic, and have the urge to perform something right now. I really need that Hamburg English Theater.

I love all of you so so much,

Love, Hanna

Hey guys!

First post ever! I'm sure what I just wrote is along the lines of what every blogger starts with. Anyway, Germany rocks because I've had 3 days of school already, I love my host family (Pamela, Thorsten, Anna, and Paul), and I'm one quarter finished with the chess set I'm making, if you don't count the actual board.

I decided to make a chess set when I was in Norway a few days before I came to Hamburg/Pinneberg (the city I live in that's next to Hamburg). I had started widling a stick that I had picked up in the woods there in Norway and thought that I wanted to do more with wood, but also something that was actually useful. How great would a big walking stick be in the city. I've kind-of wanted to make a chess set since 7th grade, when I tried making a ceramic one. It was a flop. But I'm so excited because this is the farthest I've ever come. I've made 8 pawns so far!

It's really surprising to feel this excited about school. Woodbridge was also cool, but this is different. It's all in German, as I'm sure you all knew, and the people are as nice as any. So far I've had Political Science, Biology, History, Sports, and German class. Normally we would have nine school hours, which each last 45 minutes, but we only have six on this first week. I love the political science and history teachers, the Sports and German teacher is cool too, but I don't really like the bio teacher that much, and maybe it's not fair to just base that fact off of a sense, but whatever. The classes, except for sports, have relatively the same feel to them, those ones feel totally normal, like classes should feel.

Sports, of course, is different because we're doing something physical. Today was that class and first we jumped ten times with a jump rope, ran to the other side of the gym (about 50 meters), ran back, and that was 1. We did that 10 times. Then we rotated doing different strengthening excersises, which were exhasting after a whole summer of doing nothing but walking a lot. After that I played soccer with nine boys and no girls. After the first five minutes of trying offense, I figured I was just getting in their way so I was goalie from then on. And they were playing really rough. Openly shoving and kicking each other, but it wasn't at all hostile, just competitive.

I've only had a bit of homework so far, mainly just reading a page of something or other that the teachers handed out. The history paper had so many complicated words, I only understood about twenty total, and those were the shortest ones. I felt pretty stupid after that. The German paper was about a guy who wanted to live in South America because it was too cold where he was and had once had a relationship with this woman in his church choir, and they have kids. I didn't need to look up anything to translate that.

There were these two girls I had been emailing and vise versa during the summer, Ophelia and Isabel, and I met them on my first day. Ophelia is really nice but I haven't had much contact with her. Instead, I've made friends with this other girl in my class called Kira. She is part of a host family for this other exchange student (a girl) who I think is British but might be American.

As far as German goes, it's pretty frustrating so far, but I also like this familiar feeling it's always given me. It's also fascinating to think that this is the same language people spoke hundreds of years ago. I don't really notice that with English but with a foreign language, it's kind-of apparent. And everyone says that I'll learn it really fast but by my standards, 2-3 months isn't fast, although I'm sure it'll seem to be after those months pass. I won't go into all the things I don't like about the language, and spare you guys an unessecary headache. But don't get me wrong, it's better than any other foreign language cause I already know some.

I also see good things about the language day to day, and I've been wanting to learn it for years. Something that kind-of annoys me, though, is when people say "Du sprichst gut Deutsch." Translation: You speak good German. I can wholeheartedly say that I do not speak good German at all. I speak OK German. No offense to any people reading this who have said that to me. Let's just say that wasn't a pet peeve of mine when you said it to me.

I absolutely love my host family! Pamela, for one, is always really patient whenever I ask her what this or that word means for the hundredth time. There's this group of frequently occuring words that I keep forgetting, and that's primarily what I ask her about. Thorsten is really nice all the time and he dresses cool too. Anna is five and she laughs so often, she's really bright, but sometimes she's hard to understand because kids speak differently than adults even if they all speak the same language. Paul is 2 and he is so cute, especially with his glasses. He's super tickalish. :)

I love the room and the bike and everything else that they've given me. They're house is so nice, too. I feel really comfortable here. I also met Pamela's parents again, I think I'd met them last time I was here but, no wait, I did, but I didn't really remember much from the first time. They're awesome too, and Pamela's mom is a really good cook. Pamela's dad likes to make things out of wood too. He reminds me of my great uncle Verner. He has also discovered the wonderful combination of wood and creation.

Yum.

That was ramdom. Anyway, another exciting thing that Pamela, her mom, and I did is go see West Side Story last night. A few years back, I was totally in love with that play, I knew all the songs and the lines, I went to all the rehersals of the students showing it at the college that my dad teaches at. I redescovered its splendor last night. It was wonderful! The actors were just as good as the ones I had seen at the college, but these were proffessional ones. The actor of Tony was the best. He was a fabulous singer but he didn't quite manage to make the love scenes not cheesey.

The actress of Maria was a bit better at that, and also a beautiful singer but was a bit too energetic for even that character, the innocent, excited little girl who fell hopelessly in love with her people's American rival. You guys may preceive her differently, but that's my knowledge on the overall character of that characer. :) Now I've changed my mind, the actress of Maria was the best, but the actress of Anita wasn't as prominent as I'd hoped she'd be. Rip and Bernardo, the gang leaders, as well as the other members of the gangs, including the women, met my expectations but didn't surpass them. Except for one Shark girl. She was excellent. The best dancer in the entire show.

I'm loving it here but missing you guys as well. Do your best to imagine me loving you guys so so much, I'm doing the same.

Love, Hanna