The Black Spot among other things...

First and foremost I would like to apologize for not posting in a while.  The sad thing is I don't even have a good excuse for this.  I have simply been lazy.  Though I secretly told myself I wasn't inspired enough to write entertaining entries.  Well I will leave you hanging no longer.  There will be four new blog posts within the next couple of days.  Two of them concern Potsdam, one Berlin and another Neuruppin.  I will try to stay more up to date in the future.  Even my host mother has been asking if I have posted anything new and then scolding me when I say no.

To make up for this horrible lack of German Hanna news I will give a brief update on how I am doing, not what I am doing.

Things that I like/love here:

-What my hair does in Brandenburg weather.  Many people know how much my hair aggravated me in Idaho, it was too crazy, to blah. Here it has nice curl/wave going on, not crazy one part of the hair wave but "uniform" waves.

Alla Natural - all I did was sleep on it.

-Brandenburg: this city is awesome.  Perfect size, close to Potsdam and Berlin, easy to get around on bike. So downtown is a little farther away than Boise's but still close.

-Math! I know you must be thinking I am crazy since two years I ago if you asked my opinion of Math it would have fallen in the "Hate it" category.  Last year, "Okay, I can see you can do cool things with math but still don't really like the stuff."  And now "LOVE IT!  SO COOL!"  See exhibit A and exhibit B.

Exhibit A - My Math Folder.

Exhibit B - My History Folder.
(that would be a function and  6 derivatives in rainbow colors)

-My friends, both fellow exchange students and Germans.  Everyone is so loving and supportive.

-My room.  Ever since I was a little girl I wanted a window with a balcony, and though the balcony is maybe half a foot wide I still love it.  And the slanted roof, which I have yet to hit my head on.

Things that are different/strange here:

-Not having a mircrowave

-Not having a dryer

-Having a wardrobe instead of a walk in closet

-School (big surprise).  Not having every class every day took some getting used to but I love it, and the fact that you can leave without needing a PTL.

-My bike, I have a cruiser here and love it but sometimes I miss my dual-suspension mountain bike, especially when confronted with really bouncing cobble-stones.

-The size of the pillows.  When I was in Neuruppin the fact that the pillows are larger than in the States made it challenging for me, being abnormally tall, to fit in the bed (it felt like it took up half of the bed).  At home it's not a problem because I have long bed.

-The water.  Germans like drinking mineral water, the kind with bubbles.  Occasionally I forget and take too big of a drink, the result - watering eyes and occasionally a very unlady-like burp.

Things I dislike:

-Biking in the rain, I ended up soaked to the skin after one particularly nasty rainstorm.

I was reading a fellow exchange students blog the other day and she mentioned how one of the things that she found really challenging was the lack of certain articles of clothing.  I pondered this for a while and could think of several items I wish I had, not to mention shoes.  But then I thought about it and it went something like this: Oh yeah, I wish I had that skirt and that shirt, oh and those shoes...wait a minute...in the grand scheme of life do clothes matter that much?...Of course not, why am I worrying about this...maybe I should join a nudest colony when I get home and say screw clothes altogether.  Yes, that was how my mind works.  I am strange and I believe it is my best quality.

Call me heartless, I don't mind, but I still do not miss Boise, Idaho, my family, my friends, my room.  Nothing.  Tonight at dinner I mentioned the fact that in 6 days I will have been in Germany (Deutschland) for 2 months.  And I couldn't believe it.  Time has been playing tricks on me again.  It doesn't feel like that much time has passed but they say time flies when you are having fun and drags when you're not. Well time certainly has been flying.  My exchange is 18.18% over.  YIKES!  Before I know it it will be 33.3% and then 50%.

And now to The Black Spot:

No I am not talking about Pirates of the Caribbean 2 where Captain Jack develops a nice black spot on his hand that indicates a large many-tentacled sea monster is chasing him down.  I was not nearly so fortunate as to have a cephalopod chase me across the seas in a wild adventure.  At least two weeks ago I noticed I had something on one of my front teeth while I was doing my hair.  It was black and I assumed it was some pepper.  So I went to brush it off and managed to lodge some of it under my gum.  Yes, under my gum, for the life of my I could not get it out.  So I just went about my day as usual, it wasn't noticeable unless I smiled really, really big.  However Neuruppin was approaching and I desperately wished for this Black Spot to disappear but the Rotary weekend came and went and still the Black Spot lingered.  I was very aggravated at this point.  Then I went over to a friends house and they mentioned something and so the story of the Black Spot was revealed.  I visited their bathroom to find that part of the Black Spot had emerged so I took a finger nail to it.  I could not get any more to come out but I managed to remove the little bit that showed.  Upon closer inspection it looked less like pepper and more like finger nail polish, which was distressing for multiple reasons.  1st - I do not own any fingernail polish at the moment, much less Black fingernail polish, 2nd - How the heck did something like that end up in my moth in the first place and 3rd - I hope I haven't been poisoned by this potentially toxic thing lurking under my gum.  In my attempt to remove more of the Black Spot I managed to do some damage to my gum, enough to make it bleed.  Over the next couple of days a little bit more of the Black Spot showed and I was quick to get it out of my mouth.  Finally the last of the Black Spot disappeared from under my gum.  And I sat pondering how such a substance ended up in my mouth, until I remember I had poked myself in the mouth with an un-capped Bic ball-point pen, which I know occasionally accumulate ink on the tips.  So perhaps that was what the Black Spot was made of, though it is no less comforting that mysterious black nail polish.

That's all for now, remember 4 posts are in the works, just have a little patience.  And now onto Math Homework!