This, That & Everything

4 months. That's all I have left. And to be honest, I seriously can't believe it. The time ran by so fast and it get's faster and faster every second. I try to get the most out if it but it feels like it's just rushing by. I am in the constant fear of missing out on something and that makes me nervous. I mean even though it's still hard for me to realize but this is the year of my life. And it's the only ONE year of my life. Everything that I take for granted right now will be gone soon forever. There is no going back to this life that I am living right now. I will go back to what I left behind like this never happened.

And it's not like only my american life feels like a dream, the one that I will go back to feels as unreal as this one. I don't remember how I felt before I came here. I don't remember the Leah I left behind because I created a new version of myself here and this Leah only knows this life. Everything changed, the way I look at things, the way I act around people... The culture here is so different and I learned to live with it, even better, I learned to love it. I love that you can be yourself and nobody judges you - and even if somebody judges you, you won't care because there is always somebody on your side. I don't care about other peoples opinions anymore. Playing games like Yugioh is lame, right? Guess what, here in America a lot of people play it and nobody says anything. 

My family here doesn't have Wifi, in Germany I would not have survived that but with 9 siblings and a whole new life I got to get used to not having internet. We play card games and watch movies together instead. I have so many more people I talk to here. Socializing has become way more easy for me. But I think I lost my point.. Anyways, I love it here. I made so many new experiences and I got a new home that really feels like a home. The rules I have to obey, the love my siblings give to me.  I am just really happy here and it will be so sad when I have  to  go home. I mean how are you supposed to leave a life behind when you know you will never have it back? I don't know why it was so much easier for me to leave my old life behind, probably because I knew I would come back and that it would be a great opportunity. It is a great opportunity indeed but it messes up everything.
I know that I will have to leave my friends and new  family behind and I will go back to Germany, to my old life with all these memories, inside jokes  and experiences and I will have no one who can relate to me. "Do u remember when we tried to hide from the principle- Oh wait no, I forgot you weren't there". And I have to give up this language again and everybody will talk German around me, how weird is that? High School became my school and I love it. I love how it works, even though I doubt it  gives the student the right kind of education but it feels so much better! The teacher are so nice, you can talk to them like friends and the classes are way more fun (I mean, cooking... How cool is that?) But yeah, I think about that a lot recently and it upsets me. In the moment I'm just living my everyday life. I just recovered from having a cold again and today I was SUCCESSFUL! I managed to change my third period class into creative writing even though we are already four weeks into the semester. I'm kinda proud of myself because I didn't give up. When I first talked to my guidance counselor, she said that there wasn't much she could do because you are not supposed to change classes anymore after the first week of school. But then I talked to my friend from creative writing about it and she said she would talk to her teacher. The teacher told me it was fine for her and that she would talk to my counselor. And guess what, I GOT IN! I am so happy about that. The only thing that is sad about it is that I kinda liked the teacher. He was one of the nice ones and he was always a bit funny. I wished time would start to run a little bit less fast.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

#54 Christmas vacation & more

Heyy guys! You didn’t hear from me in quite a long time and I’m sorry for that but over the holidays it was almost impossible for me to update this blog because we were busy the whole time! As I told you before, my family and I went on Christmas vacation and it was awesome!!! But first let me tell you more about my Christmas. Since I live in a big family with lots of relatives, we had three full days of Christmas. It started on Christmas Eve where we had our treasure hunt which revealed what our first destination for our trip was: The caves! In the evening we went to the grandparents where we had a big Christmas buffet and gift exchange with the big family. I got a stocking with all my favorite stuff like Reeses, peanut butter and more. I didn’t expect to get anything so I was really surprised. On Christmas day I could experience the typical American Christmas because it is tradition here to open presents in the morning which we did. Everybody was happy and it was a good time. After that we went to another gift exchange and buffet and when we drove back, I rode in the trunk of a van *-*.
On the last day of Christmas (which is only a Christmas day in Germany and not in America) we went to another side of the family.   We went bowling and had a white elephant gift exchange with Bingo, which was hilarious. This side of the family is known to be a little crazy, so I fit right in :D

One of our two christmas trees, this one is a plastic one. Many Americans don't use real ones

57 Santas are on that tree! Creppy much. It's from our grandparents

The next day we wanted to leave for our trip but I woke up in the middle of the night because I had to throw up and I found out that three of my siblings had the same thing. We still decided to leave in the morning because everybody except me was feeling good again (I also caught a cold or something). So all my siblings rode the van while I went in the car with two of my older sisters and a German exchange student from last year who came to visit. I felt horrible the whole car ride. I won’t go into too much detail about vacation now but I’ll tell you the most important things (to me anyways haha). As you could already figure out, it was a road trip and we didn’t even have certain plans only that we wanted to go down to Alabama but in the end we actually ended up in FLORIDA! I went through 5 new states this vacation (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi) and we stayed in 7 different hotels. It was so much fun! I’ve never been on a real road trip so I enjoyed it very much. The caving was one of my highlights because it wasn’t just a tour but an exploration trip where we had to crawl through the cave. It was so narrow that we had to press our tummy to the ground and try to push ourselves forward. I almost got stuck so it’s really not that easy! We also watched the new Star Wars and went to the Creation Museum. All in one I had an unforgettable Christmas.  Now I’m in school again and it is really boring in my study hall cause the Internet is down or only open for education sites. My schedule is a little different from last year; I have business law in sixth now and foods in seventh. Even though I thought business law would be the definition of boredom, it’s actually really fun and I like the teacher.
So stay tuned, I probably will upload some pictures soon. Oh, I totally forgot to mention that it was my birthday on Saturday. My family made my favorite meal for supper which is eggroles and cream cheese thingies. On Sunday we played card games for seven hours straight! You guys should check out the game Euchre which is common in the Midwest of the USA. 

Kentucky *-*

Mississippi (We walked over that 2 miles bridge)

same bridge

Such a beautiful picture (my host sister took it)

This is the cave we went through, you can see how narrow it gets and that is not even the worst part. I found the picture on the internet *click*

#53 Holidays, finals & Christmas

I didn't update this blog in awhile again and again I'm sorry for it. There is just so much going on right now that I totally forgot about it. The last time I told you that Thanksgiving is coming up and now its already the eighths of december. So how was my first and probably only thanks giving ever.. I loved it! There was so much good food and our grandparents came over and we had a blast. The pies were delicious and I was so full at the end of the day. In the evening, Cherry, one of my sisters and I went to a friends house to spend the night for black friday shopping. Two other friends came over and we decided to leave at 5 in the morning. And it was soo much fun! I am so glad I did it even though i was really really tired. We got lots of good deals at Walmart, Rue 21, Gamestop and other shops. At 8 am we went for breakfast to Steak 'n Shake and I ordered a sandwich and fries. Best breakfast ever :D On Sunday we had another Thanksgiving meal with the whole family from our moms side. We had to rent a building and there were so many people. Everybody brought a dish so we had lots of food and it was delicious once again.
I can't remember what I did the weeks after it but this weekend I did a lot of things. On Saturday we had chores in the morning which was two hours of carrying woods. I can tell you, my arms are so sore now! And after that the girls of us went to a lady's christmas party which was a lot of fun. In the evening I went to a bonfire of a friend. It was a huge fire and I met a lot of my friends there so of course it was really fun. On sunday after church, cherry, one of my sisters and I went with out local coordinator to a nutcracker ballet and it was my first ballet ever. Even though it was a little bit boring sometimes, I really enjoyed the new experience. When I woke up on monday (yesterday) I got ready like always and went down for devotions when my host mom told me that we had a 2 hours school delay because of fog. So I could go back to sleep for another hour after devotions but right after I fell asleep, one of my brothers came into our room and told us that school got completely canceled for the day! I was so happy. But another thing that is less happy is, that we have finals next week. And don't know how that will go but I have the feeling my grades will go down.
The last thing I want to tell you about is more exciting again... I ordered a bow and I'll probably get it sometime this week. I am soo excited because then I can finally practice on my own which is good because we have our first archery competition on saturday. That's it for now >)

bonfire

Ballet 

#52 Holiday Season, Winter wonderland & more

Hey guys I'm finally back after what feels like weeks where I didn't update.
That's because I didn't have anything exciting I could tell you about but now I thought it was time to let you know how life in Indiana is going. Sad things first, I'm sick again. And this time it hit me really bad cause I thought I was doing ok again but no yesterday I lost my voice all of sudden and now I can't even talk. And that happens so close before Thanks giving! I can't believe its that time of the year already but all the christmas decorations and the turkeys at walmart make it very clear that it's coming soon. So this week we only have school from monday to wednesday and then its thanks giving and right after it black friday! My family is going to have a turkey for thanks giving and I'm so happy I can make that experience. Also I am going black friday shopping on friday and I hope it will be a lot of fun. After we go back to school we only have two more weeks of school and then its time for christmas break!  I don't think I told you that yet but my family and I are going on a vacation but its a secret where we are going so I'm really excited for that too. As you can see in the title, we got snow on saturday and it looks really pretty here in the country even though I am still not a huge fan of it. Its just too cold. Last weekend was really fun. We played a lot of card games and I went to the movies yesterday to watch Mockingjay Part 2.. The movie is so amazing and I can't believe everything is over now.. But yeah this blog is not about my obsession over the hunger games.
One thing that was really strange, I found out that in the movie theater in America, you can get free popcorn refills. Yes, you read right. You just take your empty bucket to them and they refill it for free as many times as you want! Same thing for the drink by the way.
I don't know if that's a common thing here in the states or if i just went to a weird movie theater haha :D If you read this and you are in the united states too, let me know if its the same there.

#51 Time after time

Heyy, ich habe gerade nicht wirklich Zeit einen neuen Post zu schreiben, aber ich wollte euch nur mal kurz zeigen, was ich fuer meine Photoshop Class gemacht habe. Es sieht nicht nach viel aus, aber ich habe alles selbst zusammengestellt. Die Karten auf das Shirt und ich habe Indiana eine andere farve gegeben und ein Herz draufgetan. Also es steckt mehr Arbeit dahinter als es aussieht :D Und ich bin auch noch nicht wirklich fertig, aber seht selbst...

#50 Finding friends/Clubs/Family

My new post is about what is going on right now in my life. One thing that is on my mind quite a lot is that it is really hard for me to find friends. The problem is probably that I am not good in making friends in general and it is especially hard when you come into a new environment where everybody knows each other and already has their circle of friends. Another thing that makes it harder for me is that I have five sisters in my age group in my host family and we are doing quite a lot together so I never had the feeling that it is the most important thing for me to find friends. I don’t feel lonely when I am at home. Also I really tried to find friends but here in America, the girls are harder to befriend because they are already in their groups and they don’t need somebody new.
But I will try again. It’s not that I depend on it because I have this awesome host family and these awesome sisters and we have lots of fun all the time.
When you have as many siblings as I have then you will know what I mean. There is always something happening and it gets rarely boring.
The last thing I wanted to tell you is that Cherry and I are now in the archery club. For those who don’t know what that is – bow & arrow should explain it. We can’t go to all the meetings, only to the one on Fridays but it’s still a great opportunity and I love it soo much. We have to wake up at 6am because the practice is before school from 7am to 8am.

Fall is so pretty 

That's how you dress in Fall season in Indiana :D 

#49 Fall Break

I am back in school and I wish she time wouldn't fly by so fast. Fall break was amazing but too short at the same time. I had so much fun and I am sad it's over. So on friday we still had to wake up early because we had family devotion a 7am in the morning but after that I went back to sleep and I slept another two hours. After that I helped a little bit working I think but the truth is I can't remember what we did... The only thing I know is that in the evening we went to the pink out football game I told you about and it was really, really cold again and we lost. On Saturday we had our work day so I worked a little bit in the morning (after sleeping in till 10) and after that I helped making lunch what was a lot of fun. The best part of Saturday was going to the library and picking up movies and then watching them. The kids watched a movie upstairs and the older ones of us watched a different one downstairs. The movie was hilarious and I laughed the whole time. We also watched another movie but I fell asleep halfway through so I decided to go to bed while the others were finishing it.
Sunday was our church day and we made a stop at the gas station beforehand so I had a great start in the morning. After church, I went with three of my sisters to a gaming night at a friends house and there were so many people and we played video games and I had so much fun. I really loved hanging out with them and be able to play on a xbox again (I am missing mine so much haha).
Monday was kind of a lazy day. I didn't do much besides cleaning my room, doing my laundry and baking a cake but in the evening was Girls bible study group at our house and I really liked it. We are studying a book that helps you being a good wife later and to understand boys better.
Yeah, that was my fall break. I know it doesn't sound that interesting to you but for me it's the small things that makes me happy. Having a coup of coffee in the morning or baking together with your sisters... Its just a whole different world and I am so glad to be a part of it.
I hope you are all enjoying your time and if you are in Germany, you should be happy that you have a whole two weeks off for fall break! We are not that lucky in the United States...