Hey guys!
I just came back from the AFS midyear orientation. All the AFS students in Houston came together to talk about their experiences, accomplishments, challenges etc. It was fun, as always, because after the serious part, we had to participate in a talent show and everybody brought food from their home country - delicious. We enjoyed traditional Chinese piano music, Scandinavian dance and French singing and so on.
Yesterday, I performed with the band at our annual mid-winter concert, after we tried to convince some middle schoolers to come to Bellaire next year (for some reason it didn't really work and most of them seemed to plan on going to other schools - but we tried!).
When I came home last night, I finally got to celebrate my host mother's birthday with family and neighbors and a huge birthday cake. I also got to see my older host sister and her boyfriend. It was fun playing some games together (including Mexican train - a game that I already knew for once)!
One of the best news from last week: I already got asked for Prom!!!!!!! I'm so happy and excited, although I have to wait until May.
Last weekend I was pretty busy with band activities: Remember when I talked about the All-city contest? All the people that were "good enough" had to come together to practice for 6 hours and then perfom at a concert. I was a very intense and exhausting project, but working hard for something that sounds good in the end was a great experience! After the concert, I went to a thrift store (Second Hand Laden) with some friends. It was sooo much fun, we spent almost 3 hours there because we couldn't stop looking at all the great stuff they had. And the best part: It wasn't very expensive).
The Sunday after that I met two other exchange students (from Thailand and Kuwait) to visit the San Jacinto Memorial (a mexican war memorial) and a US battleship that was used during World War 2. It was a day about US/Texas history. Very interesting, but also a very long day and a busy weekend. But who needs sleep?!
Maybe you noticed, but I'm kinda going backwarts from now to the last post. And I'm realizing that I did a lot of stuff during that one month. The time is going by soo fast!
So, the week before that very busy weekend, I had the opportunity to go to the dress rehearsal of the opera "Rusalka" for free! It is a czech opera, telling the original story of "The Little Mermaid" (Arielle). What made is even more interesting and impressive for me was that my choir teacher was part of it. Although it is three hours long and I didn't understand a word, I enjoyed the music very much and I had at least an idea of what was going on on stage.
At another weekend, I spent a day with one of my friends that lived in Hannover for 3 years before she came back to Houston. She wanted to practice so we spoke German the entire time. It was so funny to see how I am forgetting words in German now, and how I try to translate American phrases literally into German. ("Das war Spaß" - that was fun)
Another highlight was seeing our high school musical "Addam's family". I was surprised how professional it was. Almost like a real broadway show, with excellent singers, actors and dancers!
Oookay I think that are about all the interesting, special things that I did during the last month. In addition to school, few homework (luckily), band and choir pracitices after school and so on.
Half of the time here is already over, I can't believe how fast that happened. I only have about 5 months left, but I am sure that they will be full of more new, interesting, exciting experiences. I am very much looking forward to everything that will happen!
Thank you again at this point for everyone and everything that helps making this time as wonderful as it is!
Bye for now,
Johanna
