Song of the Day Has Been Replaced

With "Snowy Sidewalk Report of the Day," because, you see, Awesome Songs are limited, but Mother Nature is not. So it snowed last night, meaning I met the sidewalk-snow plow (why yes, we do have mini snow plows for the sidewalk, and they tend to get their job done faster than the big ones) halfway to the Bahnhof- there was probably 1-2 cm snow on the bits of the sidewalk the plow hadn't gotten to yet, which is a pleasant amount when it is fresh. Aichach, however, is never a pleasant place to walk- I was amazed this morning to find relatively clear sidewalks- apparently it did not snow as much there, and the snow had mostly melted, leaving a rather nasty mush in most places. The afternoon was little better- it started snowing again as I was walking to school, and continued through first and second periods, resembled freezing rain in third period, thought about stopping in fourth, and was done by fifth- I think I even saw the sun briefly! In any case, it must have gotten warmer during sixth period because my walk to the train was entirely mush and yuck. Didn't bother to pay attention to the Hochzoll sidewalks because Basti drove me home from the Bahnhof.

Speaking of snow, you should check out short story "Snow Blitz" by Sylvia Plath if you can find a copy. . . it is pretty awesome (yes, Dad, I am reading the book you sent me. Of course I will enjoy anything by Pioneer Valley writers, or didn't you know that Smith and Hampshire are buddy schools?) And if you still want to get in the snowy mood, play the Arcade Fire's "Tunnels" while you are reading the story. It would have been song of the day if I was still doing that sort of thing, just because it has the line "And then our skin got thicker from living out in the snow," and also because the story in it is geil.

I'm also going to give you a nice report on the progress of the video, mainly because Christoph and I were pretty productive yesterday, and Nadja is probably endlessly curious, and the rest of you wish you could be here for the fun (bzw. torture) of editing the video. So the first scene (Scene 2) is totally done and pretty and we even got fancy with adding in our own foley and everything, professional-style. We've gotten the raw footage for scenes 6 and 7 seperated into bits we can use and bits where nobody knew their lines (guess which group is bigger). We are also creating all sorts of very rational explanations for the thousands of mis-en-scene mistakes, and have enough creativity left over for semi-awesome transitions (bzw. ways to piece together monologues from 3 takes because our actors can't say the line right all at once). And Christoph proved his worth as a cameraman (after not noticing the person/chair/building/whatever in the background of multiple shots) with the coolest shepherds-walking-through-the-wilderness shot ever, which we even managed in one take (otherwise impossible with us). Also, we finally know how to work the stupid video program, since Premiere apparently hates us, so we're stuck with Magix or whatever this thing is called. So maybe it won't take us two weeks to finish the next scene.

First period German, and I still hate Schiller. Fortunately, we have finally finished this stupid play, so hopefully I will never have to pretend to read Schiller again. And as tragedies go, Maria Stuart is one of the most pitiful. I mean, yeah, the heroine dies and she was innocent and all, but what about the random other innocents dying, and maybe also random guilty people? But no, subplots are too complex for Schiller- no love story, no back-room political jockeying, just one good guy (girl, Maria) and one bad guy (girl, Elizabeth) and a bunch of boring British lawyers debating things. And the death doesn't even happen on stage- we just get this message that Maria's lawyers have fled the country, so we assume she is dead. How anticlimactic. I can't believe I sat through this thing for all these weeks.

Had second period free today, which is always fun because lots of other people have it free (everyone who is neither Catholic nor in Math LK) and we discussed the Simpsons (this is normal), and I tried to explain the concept of Family Guy, and why it is better than the Simpsons, but I failed miserably, because Family Guy is impossible to explain. We also discussed beer, in particular differences between beer and beer policy in the US and Germany, Soccer and other sports, and curfews (why yes, it was basically a room full of boys and me. This seems to happen a lot. Do you think it has to do with there being 107 boys born to every 100 girls? I learned that in Biology.)

Math is third period, and I had to giggle to myself when the teacher said "Now, don't faint, but I'm going to give you two worksheets. You don't have to do them all- we'll do part in class, and you can do the rest at home if you want." There were maybe 15 or 20 math problems on each worksheet. How are Germans so much better at math than me and yet do so little of it? I also was amazed to hear "I don't care how you do the problem, as long as the answer is right," which I thought was the opposite of every math teacher's opinion, but I guess I've finally found a sensible one. AND I managed to do 60% of my math homework, although I don't know if any of it is right, but this is a huge improvement- I might have a chance of not staring at next week's test and writing "Math Hard. Can't Do." Might. I have, however, discovered I am much better at mental math and fractions than Germans- I have seriously watched multiple classmates reach for a calculator to figure out the decimal equivalent of 1/3, which made me wonder why I am so lost in class.

History made me realize that maps are really fascinating- for some reason, my history teacher always brings a huge map that vaguely relates to his lesson and hangs it in the room, then never refers to it, but I and many of my classmates stare at it, reading whatever random detail instead of listening to the lecture. Maybe it is because it is large and colorful, or maybe its just a weird thing with History LK people. I was also incredibly entertained by the c. 1919 parliamentarian-socialist pamphlet that was set up as a set of their opponent's arguments and then the reason these arguments are wrong. The final argument, something about elected officials, had this reply: "We agree with this statement." It was a pretty silly way to end a persuasive pamphlet, I think.

There is supposed to be a huge test in Reli tomorrow- I am so sleeping in late, because I have been to maybe 4 Reli classes total, so I have no hope. Yay for not having first or second period!