Sonntag, 26. Juli 2015

Exchange

"Exchange is change. Rapid, brutal, beautiful, hurtful, colorful, amazing, unexpected, overwhelming and most of all constant change. Change in lifestyle, country, language, friends, parents, houses, school, simply everything.
Exchange is realizing that everything they told you beforehand is wrong, but also right in a way. Exchange is understanding.

Exhange is learning to trust. Trust people, who, at first, are only names on a piece of paper, trust that they want the best for you, that they care. Trust, that you have strenght to endure a year on your own, endure a year of being apart from everything that mattered to you before. Tryst that you will have friends. Trust that everything's going to be alright. And it is seeing this trust being justified.

Exchange is going from thinking you know who you are, to having no idea who you are anymore to being someone new. But not entirely new. You are still the person you were before you jumped into that ice cold lake. You know how it feels like to be on your own. Away from home, with no one you really know. And you find out that you can actually do it.

Exchange is thinking. All the time. About everything. Thinking about those strange costumes, the strange food, the strange language. About why you're here and not back home. About how it's going to be like once you come back home. How that girl is going to react when you see her again. About who's hanging out where this weekend. At first who's invinting you at all. And in the end where you're supposed to go, when you're invited to ten different things. About how everybody at home is doing. About how stupid this whole time-zone thing is. Not only because of home, but also because the tv ads for shows keep confusing you. Thinking about what's right and what's wrong. About how stupid or rude just were to someone without meaning to be. About the point of all this. About the sense of life. about who you want to be, what you want to do. And about when that English essay is due, even though you're marks don't count. About whether you should go home after school, or hang out at someone's place until midnight. Someone you didn't even know a few months ago. And about what the hell that guy just said.

Exchange is people. Those incredibly strange people, who look at you like you're an alien. Those people who are too afraid to talk to you. And those people who actually talk to you. Those people who know your name, even though you have never met them. Those people, who tell you who to stay away from. Those people who talk about you behind your back, those people who make fun of your country. All those people, who aren't whorth you giving a damn.Those people you ignore. And those people who invite you to their homes. Who keep you sane. Who become your friends.

Exchange is falling in love. With your new amazing, wild, beautiful country. And realising how much you love your home country.

Exchange is music. New music, weird music, cool music, music you will remember all your life as the soundtrack of your exchange. Music that will make you cry because all those lyrics express exactly how you feel, so far away. Music that will make you feel like you could take on the whole world. And it is music you make. With the most amazing musicians you've ever met. It is site reading a thousand pages just to be part of the school band.

Exchange is uncomfortable. It's feeling out of place, like a fifth wheel. It's talking to people you don't like. It's trying to be nice all the time. It's bugs.. and bears. It's cold, freezing cold. It's homesickness, it's awkward silence and its feeling guilty to because you didn't talk to someone at home. Or feeling guilty because you missed something because you were talking on Skype.

Exchange is great. It's feeling the connection between you and your host parents grow.. It's knowing in which cupboard the peanut butter is. It's meeting people from all over the world. It's having a place to stay in almost every country of the world. It's getting ' new familie. One of them being a huge group of the most awesome teenagers in the world. It's cooking food from your home country and not messing up. It's seeing beautiful landscapes that you never knew existed.

Exchange is exchange students. The most amazing people in the whole wide world. Those people from everywhere who know exactly how you feel and thos epeople who become your absoulute best friends even though you only see most of them 3 og 4 times during your year. The people, who take almost and hour to say their final goodbyes to each other. Those people with the jackets full of pins. All over the world.

Exchange is frustrating. Things you can't do, things you don't understand. Things you say, that mean the exact opposite of what you meant to say. Or even worse... Exchange is nothing like you expected it to be, and everything you wanted it to be. Exchange is the best year of your life so far. Without a doubt. And at the same time it can be the worst.

Exchange is something you will never forget, something that will always be a part of you. It is something no one back at home will ever truly understand.

Exhange is growing up, realizing that everybody is the same, no matter where they're from. That there is great people and douche bags everywhere. And that it only depends on how good or bad your day is going to be. Or the whole year. And it is realizing that you can be on your own, that you are an indepentent person. Finally. And it's trying to explain that to your parents.

Exchange is dancing in the rain for no reason, crying without a reason, laughing at the same time. It’s a turmoil of every emotion possible.

Exchange is everything. And exchange is something you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it"


Exchange is not a year in a life,

it‘s a life in a year

Mittwoch, 4. März 2015

When you go to Alaska and it's not cloudy...

...the chance exists you will see...


...not only the stars...


...but also the Northern lights also called Aurora Borealis!

That was on Sunday night at 10 PM.
Because Juneau is so cloudy all the time we don't get to see the Northern lights often
and when it happens you never exactly know if it's going to be a good night to see them
 or it could be 2 AM when they are out.

When the Aurora is out a bunch of people go and see them,
taking pictures (like me) or just starring and not getting
enough from the breathtaking view (Also me)

This picture and the two before were all one streak. 
It looked like a rainbow.. a green moving rainbow.

It was my 2nd time seeing them, but this time they were
defenitely stronger than last time

If the Aurora is strong enough you will see different colors.
You can see on the left corner a bit of red mixed in the green.

It will move, go lighter then again stronger the whole night
and it's just a wonderful spectacular to see

In the driveway of our house

See you next time Aurora Borealis <3 

Sonntag, 1. März 2015

Activities, school schedule

Hey guys,

today I wanna talk about my schedule. I'm already in the 2nd semester and my schedule had some changes:

1. Period: Yoga and Aerobics (instead of Guitar from 1st Semester) I like it, sometimes we do really sport, but most of the time we do Yoga. My favourite time are the last five minutes were you lay down and pretty much fall asleep.. Aehm I mean relax!

2. Period: Ceramics (American Government) I've done ceramics personally when I was younger and it is really fun. We also do pots on the wheel, what I've never done before.

3. Period: English (same) English is not comparable with the subject German in Germany. We do 20 minutes reading of a book our own choice and watching movies (most of them are really confusing) and do different units. We just learned how to write an Argumentation. Something I learned in Germany since 6th grade... but our teacher is super super nice like all the other teachers I have here. I mean literally really super friendly and talk about their personal life and care about you (not that the teachers in Germany don't care, but the relationship between student and teacher is quite different)

4. Period: Concert Choir (same) I love Choir and we have such an awesome teacher. We will have 3 concerts in this semester and I'm really looking forward to that

5. Period: Psychology (Drama) Is very interesting what we learn and yesterday we did a simulation where we listened to songs and wrote our emotional feeling to those songs (including the lion king song) and our homework this week is analyzing our sleep rythme

6. Period: Honors American History (same) We do this semester less simulations and more reading in the book about WW1 and I'm gonna write a test next week and of course because I'm an exchange student, I'm going to spent my free time reading 40 pages for this test!!
*if you didn't realized that was sarcasm and if you are an exchange student you probably got it 

Clubs: 
I joined Yearbook this year. I wanted to join earlier, but the club was full and I was soo happy when I had the opportunity to do it and I love it. Creating and organizing a yearbook page is so much fun and they do it here with professional programmes like InDesign and Photoshop
I'm in Interact, what is a youth club from Rotary and they basically try to help people and do good stuff for the community
Another club is Sources of Strengths. It;s a club for Antibullying and Suizidprevention through students. The goal of SoS is to make the school a better and healthier place to learn and strengthen the school spirit.

Activities:
I did at the beginning of the year Volleyball and during the Winter the school musical Xanadu, what was so much fun and an honor to play in.
During spring I wanna do another sport, probably Track and Field or Softball!

So yeah that is all I got :)

Have an awesome great day,

xoxo Selina

Mittwoch, 4. Februar 2015

SAVE CBYX/PPP

Hallo Leute,

heute geht es mal nicht direkt um mich, sondern über das Programm mit dem ich und 700 andere Studenten in beiden Ländern sind. Ohne das Stipendium hätte ich kein Auslandsjahr machen können und viele meiner Freunde, die ich kennengelernt habe, auch nicht. Es existiert schon seit über 30 Jahren. Nun soll es aus Budgetgründen gekürzt werden. Deshalb bitte ich euch um eure Unterschrift auf der Seite save.cbyx. Es ist nur ein Klick und die Nennung eures Namens und es würde für manchen die Welt bedeuten.
DANKE!

Selina

Dienstag, 6. Januar 2015

Day 3 - Santa Claus, Public Market, Duck Tour, Beach

Last Day:
The right way to start your day





First Starbucks


Deutscher Laden *-*









Gumwall

Bye, Bye  See you, Public Market



Eine Ducktour: Faehrt durch die Stadt und auch aufm Wasser

Freitag, 2. Januar 2015

Day 2 Seattle - Ballett, Chocolate Caffee

Naechster Tag haben wir als Erstes gut gefruehstueckt und sind dann Christmasshoppen gegangen. Ich hab ein Kleid fuer den bevorstehenden Snowball gefunden. Danach gings dann schon wieder - wie wuerde man es anders erwarten - ESSEN und zwar indisch. Und after that schnurstracks ins Ballett in den Nutcracker. Das Ballett war wirklich richtig toll und auch das erste Mal das ich Ballett gegangen bin. Nach dem Ballett sind wir noch in einen Laden gegangen, der Schokoladentorten, -eis, -creme,-.... ein totales Schokoladenparadis fuer mich :D


Fruehstuck

Laden fuer Outdoor Stuff

Der Eiserne Thron aus Skiiern





fancy Geschaeft

Auf ins Ballett








#blur