That's When I Reach For My Revolver

Don't worry, I'm not going violent or anything. Instead, you get a song of the day because I pulled out my cd player (which weighs so much, I have discovered- my shoulders ache so bad) and one of my collections of Indie-Geek music and today you get a song of the day via Moby! (Okay, Moby's not really indie or geek, but this cd also has a song mourning the death of Optimus Prime, so it evens out)
There was a lovely little coat of frost on the sidewalks this morning- fortunately, I have no first period Wednesdays, so I took my time getting to school (I was no later than normal). First, though, I have to tell you about how awesome trains are for people-watching. I've been riding the train long enough to get used to the regulars, and there is this group of teenage boys I have named the Toughs and Rowdies because they dress all Designer Gangsta and say "Alder" (German dude) all the time. Also, they had a pretty rowdy snowball fight once. In any case, there are two apparent leaders of this group, and I have named them Frankie and Johnny because they just look like they should be named Frankie and Johnny. Johnny is the true leader, and he is Brooklyn all by himself. He's all big and vaguely Italian looking and wears a pinstriped Yankees hat every day and is clearly the top of the pecking order. In my head, he is the grandson of a mob boss, preparing his little gang for when the old man dies so he can take over and get in on the real action. Frankie is probably about 15 or 16, and all young-looking in that 15- or 16-year-old boy way. He always wears this muted red and blue jacket with cream accents that probably cost a ton of money and is supposed to look like a retro racing jacket. This makes Frankie one of those guys from 70s movies about the 50s who go racing their cars- he is the guy who always wins, even though he is still too young to drive (my head ignores this detail). Frankie has become a sort of apprentice of Johnny, although he's not quite in on the mob connections, and he is learning to lead his own little group of slightly younger boys. Sometimes I see Frankie and Johnny walking together a bit behind the rest of the group- this is proof that Johnny is giving Frankie advice as leader of a group of young hooligans.
I swear I also went to school today! Religion (the class) still sort of freaks me out- somehow, the Protestant class also includes all the people who are protesting religion in general (but the German word for Protestant is Evangelisch, so this makes less sense), and we end up with someone halfway arguing (not in an angry way or anything, just in an "this makes no sense" way) that one cannot legitimately argue that a human needs God (this point makes a lot more sense in the greater context), and then I'm sitting there with a teacher saying "People do need God. We can say this from the experience that a person adds God to their life, and their life goes better." As much as I agree with this statement, my American brain wants to explode in protest when I hear a teacher say it in the context of school. Other cultures can be so confusing.
Biology brought Herr Wittmeier's witty moment of the day (I in no way intended a pun from his name): "When it's cold out, you have to make sure to drink plenty of gas." "Why?" "So you can heat yourself!"
History was pretty exciting- we are talking about 1920s Germany, which, if you know anything about German history, you will know to be a period that included galloping inflation. To prove this point to us, my teacher brought it old money. We started with nice, normal things- 10 mark bills from 1905, 1911, the occasional 50 from 1915 or so, got up to the 100 mark point, but it was pretty normal. Then he broke out the bills from 1922-1923. First came 1000 mark. Then 100000. Then we were introduced to the million mark bill from June of 1923, at which point it was worth about $3. That sounds like pretty bad inflation, right? It got worse. Next came the 100 million bill, from a time when it was worth about 3 kg of bread. How high did we go? 10 billion marks. When your currency requires that you have 10 billion in a single bill, you are in a pretty bad place. That was crazy. (Here is a good time for a fun language lesson! The German word "billion" is not the same as the English word! Germans count thousand, million, milliarde, billion, billiarde, trillion, etc. Americans go thousand, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc.)
Art was awesome because my art teacher thinks my art is really good- I did a study of a screw today, which was actually fun! It's awesome to grab a random object and make it seem all important by filling a whole big page with its tiny details. I made a 2 cm thick stripe just to show how the light hit the edge of the top of the screw! My art teacher was pretty impressed, too- he was all "How long are you staying here? Are you going to take the Schularbeit? You have to take the Schularbeit! At least the practical part! You are so good!" And I was like *beam!* It was wonderful. Got Döner for lunch (mmmm) and had the fun of watching Zimmy and Chubie try to convince a whole row of people they were working cash register from 10-12 at the K12-K13 party. They were unsuccessful for so long, and then Matthias totally bought it and started getting all upset because he wants to party, not sit at cash register for the busiest two hours. It was quite funny. German. . . oh, German. I've figured out the the LKs are the only classes that are really like American honors classes- GKs are totally Z-level. You'd think this wouldn't bother me, what with the foreign language and all, but I am actually pretty offended when the German teacher assigns two essay questions and requests partial outlines and like 3 paragraphs, and gives the class a whole month to do it, and they all act like it's this huge and difficult thing. I mean, we wrote 5-page essays on a relatively regular basis starting in the tenth grade! And the level of analysis expected from us was much higher than here. . . it's not a whole lot more than plot summary and mentioning of similies and rhyme. Yes, I'm weird for not being happy about getting to slack off here (of course, doing it in German means not slacking). I like writing essays! I want to write an essay! I want to compare Schiller to Shakespeare and Shaw and use fancy turns of phrase and be snobby and intellectual and quote Dadaists and online comics! Of course, I haven't even really read Maria Stuart, so I guess this also saves me that worry. But still.
I'm not sure to give up on being good at math again or not- the people in my class (and I love them dearly) are sometimes so slow on getting things (well, Tassilo tends to get it right away, and David's usually there) but then I still have this big hole in my knowledge that is keeping me from being quite on the right page. Grrr. I don't have a calculator, either.
No Chemistry! For the third time this week, I got to come home an hour early. Granted, that still meant 5:20 today, but an hour is an hour. I am fairly certain that all 3 of my classes will take place tomorrow, but one never knows.

Nadja feels that it is important to explain her reasons for thinking the boys are doof, and I agree because they are entertaining reasons (but maybe only to me): (translated by me) "the boys are doof because they don't talk to me, bully me, and are mean to me!"- Nadja. Poor, poor Nadja. Nobody loves her (except for me!).

A combination of Kacey's good advice and Mary's positive thoughts has got my iPod and my computer being friends! I have music again!