It's Like Rain

Getting out of bed on Tuesday mornings is still the hardest thing I ever have to do. I will never ever get used to it.

German radio seems to think that Alanis Morisette's "Ironic" is THE song of the moment- I swear I have heard it at breakfast every day for the past week. According to the DJ this morning, this song has "the prettiest lyrics." This is pretty much proof that Germans don't understand English as well as they think they do.

Leading to my next point: the things they tell you at orientation are lies. Germans do not speak English to Americans- they use it about as much as the average American uses French, which means that they trot out the phrase or two they remember from high school and then try not to use too much Platt, which is not actually a language. Germans also are not all that interested in discussing politics- the only political discussions I've had are in class as part of the curriculum. I barely even talked about the election (it is now Tuesday and they still don't know who their Chancellor will be, by the way*), although I've discussed American geography a ton. I started to make a list of all the things from the handbook that are so untrue, but then I decided I should pay attention in history class and still had no idea what the teacher was talking about today (I don't think my classmates did, either, which is mildly comforting). Had my last English class before fall break and talked about affirmative action (yawn) and the American dream (there was actually a mildly interesting text and now I have to read political speeches sometime during the next 3 weeks). Art and I still don't trust my painting abilities. Free period: did my Italian homework, avoided fifth graders with no control over their soccer ball (American school is light-years ahead of German in the concept of keeping fifth and twelfth graders separate), napped on the bench and decided that the Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood 1" is the song of the day (sorry, Alanis and German radio, but you have 10000 spoons and I need a knife) and then had pizza and Italian and took forever to get home because bus connections suck.

I am planning a party for Saturday because I will be 18 in two days! You are all invited, but most of you are across the ocean so here is what you must do: at approximately 2 pm Eastern, eat some cake. Turn on music and rock out. Party down on your side of the ocean while we party here. Take pictures and we will compare at a later date. If you feel weird celebrating without me there, make a sock puppet.

I am sleeping in tomorrow until it is warm, and then I am going to go crazy from trying to understand Kant.

*Emily just reminded me that the talk over coalitions has made me giggle a lot while watching the news. See, each party has a color- Social Democrats are red, Christian Democrats are black, Left is dark red, Green is, well, green, and FDP (I forget what this stands for, but I think they're sort of like Libertarians) is yellow. So the three main potential coalitions are as follows:
Red-Black: the "Grand Coaltion" of the 2 big parties (this is not a creative name)
Traffic light: Red, Yellow, Green Parties
Jamaica: Black, Yellow, Green Parties
Although I am not certain that I like this whole parliamentary system (I used to think that proportional representation was a good idea, but now I yearn for simpler elections, like America in 2000), I really want a system that allows me to nickname my government after other countries. (I am conflicted because I don't want the Jamaica coalition in power, but I want to be able to cheer for Jamaica because it is so much fun to say in German.)