Normal-ish

Meine Damen und Herrn-

This week has been... normal. Interesting. I now have a definition for 'normal' life in Germany. Not much really happened. Went to a birthday party for a schoolmate last Saturday. Messed up my hip during a faux-wrestling match with said schoolmate. It was fun, but my hip still hurts and judo tonight didn't help it. Nor did the cold I got a couple days ago that I'm still fighting with.

Won a bet with my Deutsch teacher on who would win the election. He has to wear a skirt to school now, and he's not too happy about that. There's a LAN party tomorrow at Max's house. Should be pretty fun.

My German is getting better all the time. I found out that I actually speak better German when I'm totally worn out and/or my adrenaline level is high. I was able to hold an intelligible and somewhat interesting conversation with Mereike on the way home from Judo tonight. Mereike is another Judo fighter who lives in Hammah, so we've started going there together. Appearently there's more than one competition coming up. One on the 16th and one on the 22nd. Did I not mention that before? Oh well... I'll be sure to get pictures and maybe some video. Judo competitions are significantly larger here, so it should be something worth seeing.

Other than that, there's not much going on here. Took a Religion test that was kind of a stretch. That's alright though. The teacher in that class likes me because I have a solid opinion and belief system that I'm willing to stand up for. I know this is kind of a short post, but I really don't have much else to say. Like I said, its been a 'normal' week. If I think of anything else in the next few days I'll add it to this post. I hope I'll have more to say next week... Oh yes, next week. Next week is the first bi-monthly 'photo day' here at Middleman. Every other week I'm going to post around five pictures of daily life here in Deutschland. This is for our more 'visual' followers (Dad, Mom, Amber, ect.) and also to be sure that I have an effective way to remember what my life here is like. Let's see... 5 pictures every other week for roughly 36 weeks... That makes about 90 pictures posted here during the course of my stay. Here's hoping the habit will catch on.

-Elliot P.