Finally

I figured out how to upload pictures, so here we go!

I also wrote a new posting, so if you wanna know what I´ve been up to just go a head and scroll down...

Me at homecoming!













Sydney and me on our way to a race. Nice face paint eh?













The Cross Coutry Team 08 in Leadville!

The Homecoming Game (Sieger der Herzen!)

Me at the Football Field!

You gotta want it to win it, and we want it more!

Go Mustangs!

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Hola everybody!

I just came home from school, it is 12.15, and it is Christmas Break! I am so ready for break. Honestly. It took me some effort to get up this morning. I´ll tell you all about it.
Tuesday, Wednesday and today was our Finals Week. On each of these days we only had 3 or 2 class periods, which were about 1 and 1/2 hours long. In every class we either wrote a final test or did a class discussion which would be the final part of our grade. It was kind of scary. But overall I think I did pretty well. For my Literature class we had to write a multi genre essay, which means writing a story in form of poems, diary entries, articles, pictures etc. I wrote about you, Lina, and the carreer you will have on Broadway when you grow up. It was quite fun. On Finals day we had to present our paper and when I read it out I was so proud of you and all the things you have accomplished and I started crying. The greatest thing about this finals was that I will never ever have Trigonometry in my exchange year and I am so excited about that. I might regret not taking any math classes in my secon semester once I come back to Germany and have to study over the summer, but right now I´m not worrying about that yet.
There is so much to do here, s many opportunities, so many nice people; I really don´t feel like wasting my time here with math. After Christmas Break, the second semester starts and I´ll have great classes.

1. Bacteriology and Genetics
2. Shape up / Fitness
3. Young Adult Literature and Composition
4. Women´s Select Choir
5. Theatre 3
6. Public Speaking
7. Broadway Dance

I´m so excited.
I also can´t wait for christmas. I´m sitting on my favourite couch in the word right now, in the living- room, looking at the Christmas tree. It. Is. So. Beautiful. You know me, I really get into all that christmas stuff and the decorations, the music, and the baking. Today mom drew all our names on the stockings and put them up over the fireplace. Yesterady night dad brought the real christmas tree inside (yes, everyone, we have 3 christmas trees!) and it smells amazing. Then the awesome powdery white sparkling snow makes the Christmas time perfect.
Mom and Dad bought the cutest tree ornament ever. It´s a little ceramic plate ith 6 snowmen on it and each of them has a name tag, which say Jamie Corena Zachary Kaylah Emma and Insa. That is so sweet.
I also sat on Santa´s lap at the mall! I think it was the real Santa, his beard really didn´t look fake. He wore knee high socks and I bet Mrs. Claus made them for him. I told him I´ve been a good girl this year.

Of course we also had an other choir concert. We sang Santa Baby, Cool Jule, Bashana Haba´ah, and two latin songs; Jubilate Deo and Gaudeamus Hodie. It was again a great concert. Dad, Mom and Emma came to watch, which was really sweet. My friend Tarah and I sang a solo, which was Hallelujah from the movie Shrek. It was so amazing to sing that song on stage, because it is one of my absolute favourites and singing it with Tarah in harmon just gave me goosebumps.

I didn´t write about church yet, did I?
the church here is so much fun. We go to Southeast Christian Church, which I would explain as a mix of the protestant faith, baptist church, and (now I have to use the german term) der Freikirchlichen Evangelischen Gemeinde. The services are so touching. Last sunday we talked about the Grinch and what other factors can be that can "steal" Christmas or the feeling of it. The band and the choir are singing on stage and we always stand when we sing and just raise our hands or palms, people close their eyes and clap their hands. At church we sing songs of Hillsong and Chris Tomlin and I was so surprised that I knew all the lyrics by heart on my first time at church! It is such a great feeling to stand there and feel like being a part of the song.

I also went to some christmas parties at my friends´. At Lauren´s and Jessica´s party we watched Polar Express and then they gave all f us a little bell on a necklace and when we were able to hear it jingling, we believed in Santa Claus. I found that really sweet.

Thank you for all the christmas cards and packages that you sent to me. It´s nice to kno that so many people think and care about me, whether it´s here or back home. Getting mail always makes my day.


I wish all of you a merry and blessed Christmas time!
Frohe Weihnachten.
I´ll send you some snow over occasionally.

Love and kisses,

Insa

Politics, Family, Fall break, Choir and LIFE

Hi everyone, yes, I'm finally writing an other post, I can't believe it either! I don't even know where to start, there are so many things I want to tell you about! So, I hope you have some time, because I guess this is gonna take a while.

I will start circa 4 weeks ago, at my choir concert. My choir, Women's Select, sang four beautiful songs: America from West Side Story, Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, You Raise Me Up by Westlife, and When I Am Silent. Besides that, I had the amazing opportunity to sing one out of three solo's in the whole concert, which was an honor to me. I chose to sing Only Hope by Mandy Moore, which is in the movie A Walk To Remember. In the evening of the concert, we all wore the same black dresses and met at school for the last sing through with all choires together. the choire room was really crowded with all these students in formal dresses and tuxes and I felt like I fell into an American High School movie, once again. I was nervous, the auditorium was full. More than 400 people were in the auditorium and the stage suddenly didn't feel like the most comfortable place to be right now. Firt we sang the 4 songs with Women's Select Choire and then I sang my solo, alone on stage with my friends watching and, even worse, listening. I felt like I was dying, but after the first seconds I enjoyed it a lot and had a great time! It was an amazing feeling to see, what the choires and then I myself had archieved with all the hard work we put into this evening. I still can't really believe that I sang in front of all these people, but I guess it really is true, that in your exchange year you have the opportunity to explore yourself completely new. And I did that! I mean, I run Cross Country! Who in Germany (myself included) would ever have thought I might actually enjoy running races?

After the concert, fall break started! I had one week to sleep, write essays, hang out with friends and spend time with my family. My family and I went to Anderons Farms to visit a haunted cornfield and buy a pumpkin. I've never seen something like this before. We waited till twilight and then went into the cornfield. There were these humans dressed as funny and gross creatures, like werewolves, vampires, and, worst of all, a clown with a chainsaw. I am so terrifyed of clowns, and then this guy comes up to mom and me and comes closer and closer while we stand in the corner and dad and kaylah had a great time laughing about us :D I guess my face looked quite funny!

Halloween was such a great experience. Kaylah and I dressed as vampires at school; we had pretty cool teeth and capes and wore black dresses. Our make- up was terrific! Once at school, it was not scary, but I was laughing so hard the whole time. A really tall boy from the volleyball team was dressed as a giraffe, an other boy as a french maid with a very very very short dress, one girl in a Dirndl dressed as a "german". Then I saw a banana, a lady bug, Charlie from Top Gun, and so many more creative costumes! It was kind of sad though that some girls seemed to use Halloween just as an excuse for barely wearing anything.
In the evening I was Trick or Treating with Kaylah, Emma (as Sharpay, she looked so cute!), and Kaylah's boyfriend Cory. I love Reese's peanut butter cups!
After that I went over to Sydney's and we talked basically the whole night.

OBAMA!
For everybody who didn't know: Barack Obama was elected president of the USA! I am so happy. i almost started crying while he was giving his acceptance speech, it was just amazing. It was such a great feeling to be part of history here in the US. I have an Obama Sticker and whemn I get a car and my license when Icome back to Germany, that will be the first thing I put onto my car! It is so incredible that finally there is an African American president in the United States. My history teacher was so nice to write a quote down for me. It goes:
Rosa Parks sat
So Martin Luther King could walk
And Barack Obama could run
And our children can fly!
I love this quote. I just wanted to share that with you.
Some kids at my school that were republicans, were really upset on wednesday after the election. When we watched the speech in class, some of them went out in the hallway, because they took it very personally.

Last week I was running with Valentina in the freezing cold. We were really proud, that we worked out in the cold, so I pormised her to mention this on my blog. :) We also went shopping in Park Meadows Mall. I bought a hat at Urban Outfitters and Jacob thinks it looks ugly, and my mom thinks it looks like my great aunt's hat. I love it! We had a great time drinking a Starbucks and doing come Christmas Shopping. She is just an amazingly nice person.


I am going to go to Hawaii next spring with YFU! The best is that I alredy know three really really nice people that will go there together with me, a girl from my VBT, and a German and a Danish boy I met here at a YFU sleepover and spend some time with. I am so much looking forward to that. We're going to visit Pearl Harbor, go snorkeling and sailing and surfing and just be in HAWAII!!! I can't believe it yet.
And then, even better, I also will spend time with my lovely American family in Orlando, Florida. We will go on a family vacation and spend some time at Disney World and at the beach. I can't wait! I love my family, they make me feel home. It is going to be great to spend Christmas with them and New Year and - I can't even put into words how thankful I am.


As you all can see there is no reason to worry about me - I'm still the crazy person that took off 3 months ago. I probably gained some weight, but also muscles :) I'm faster at running, I can speak English much better and fluently, I cut my hair about 20 centimeters and dyed it red (just temporarily, don't freak!) and love hippie clothes. I learned how to switch the monsterous TV on and off withoiut breaking it, how to use the microwaves at school, how to open my locker. I am more orientated and organized, and I learned to plan and to be less spontaneous, because I always have to rely on someone with a car when I'd like to go out. I still want to go to Kenya when I grow up (I joined the extreme World Concern Club, we're supporting an orphanage in Kenya, isn't that amazing?). I still dream about traveling all over the world and I still laugh at girls that carry little designer purses, whoese purpose in life is to be liked by boys and wear so much make up that they can't change their face expression. I am still Insa.


I love you so much. You meen so much to me.

Don't forget me.


Take care, Insa

Hi!

First of all thank you so much for all the mails I got from you. I read some of them on Wednesday morning during Advisement in the school library and I was trying so har not to laugh out loudly at Mama´s or Clemens´ mails. Thanks guys, that totally made my day.

The weather changed very quickly from about 20° C to 6°C. It is really cold! I was complaining about the weather being so chilly and rainy and Jamie was laughing at me, because I considered 8°C as cold. They are Canadian, so he told me in Canada when it got this "warm", he´d wear shorts. Well.

Since the last blog posting so many things happened again, it gets harder and harder to keep you on track!

The first quarter of my Senior Year at High School ended and I got good grades.
I have an A (98.7%) in my English class, which is Young Adult Literature and Composition, an A (97.5 %) in Theatre III, 100% in both Shape up and Women´s Select Choir, bot A´s in US history and Contmporary World Issues and a B in Trigonometry (I can so live with that!).

When people would watch me living my every day life, they probably wouldn´t understand why I say it is an adventure. I have 1-2 hours homework every day, wake up at 6 o´clock in the morning and I run Cross Country for fun :) I don´t go to parties Downtown or live a OC California type of American life.
There are these small things I love. I like the face expression on Kaylah´s face when I knock on the door and I love it when we do our insider jokes.
(Just imagine Kaylah and me in the crowded hallways of Ponderosa High, walking towards each other, stretching one leg into the air and yelling: "Gender!", or "Flip the boot!".)
I love evenings with my family, even if that means watching scary movies.
Yes, The Happening WAS scary.
I love talking to Sydney and the way we painted our faces for the race in Leadville. I love when I just sit here on my desk and look outside and see the lights of the city down there and the Rocky Mountains. I love running together with Sydney. I love having Lunch with Lauren and having fun with Valentina, the nicest Italian person in the whole world and my favourite Valentina ever. I like the comfy chair in my room! Thank you so much Zack! I love ice skating with Emma and Jamie. And I love showing pictures of all my German friends to Kaylah and listening to her comments.
("Wow, Insa, this girl has really intense eyebrows^^!")
And I love practising Maths with Kaylah. I explained sin cos and tan to her in a right triangle and then we made up some math probems. It was so much fun. I drew a triangle and named one corner Orlando Bloom, one Kaylah and one Insa. The question was: whose way to Orlando is longer? :)

Our Choir Concert is coming up next Thursday and I´m already so excited!

Thursday nght I watched the first Theatre play of our school: Madwoman of Chaillot. It was really good, I can´t wait until we are going to do "Pride and prejudice" in the end of the school year.

I´m also looking forward to watching High School Musical 3! It´s coming up on October 24th! and then Twilight the movie is gonna be released in December... and I´m going to watch The Dutchess. My friends and I are going to paint some shirts for watching Twilight together. Mine will say: Team Jacob- because real men don´t sparkle! A bunch of Edward fans shouldn´t get too denfensive.

I started loving Yoga, too. Some time ago I went to my first Yoga class and it was exhausting, but lots of fun.


I miss you.


The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Elenor Rosevelt -




Ich liebe euch.

Eure Insa

Homecoming Week

Hi everyone :)

I hope you guys are all doing good! I am fine. I kind of get used to going to school over here and speaking English the whole time, waking up early and having a lot of work to do. Still, I have a great time.

Last week was so exciting!
We had Homecoming Week at Ponderosa High, which means every day was themed and the students would dress up according to the day´s topic. Tuesday for example was Superhero Day. We had such a great time, because everyone went nuts in this week :)
Some guys really had funny costumes. On Safari Day, two boys would dress up as bananas and on Wild Wild West Day they wore mini skirts and high heel boots: Cowgirls. Well.
On Thursday night there was our Homecoming Football Match and we had a Prep Rallye in 6th and 7th period, the cheerleader and poms danced and everyone got into the mood. When I arrived at the stadion together with Valentina, a friend of mine, it almost felt like a time shift back to the soccer worldcup. The school- spirit here in the USA is just amazing; we all wore school colours (cardinal and gold) and had painted faces. It feels great to be part of this.
Okay, I mean we lost the game. ;) but anyway!

I couldn´t do Cross Country last week because I got a shin splinters and my knee is injured, but I will be alright again in a few.

Then of course, Saturday, the Homecoming Dance!
Oh my gosh it was so much fun!
My dress was really pretty, it is creamecolored in the middle and on the sides a dark brown and it´s tied in the back.
My friends and I first went out for dinner, took some pictures afterwards and then drove to school. There were actually some kids with a limo! That was like in all the high school movies I´ve seen before - but it was there, part of it. It was hard to believe all these things were happening and I was not dreaming, seriously.
Dancing was so much fun. When I stood there then, in the cafeteria, with the loud music and the beat shaking the floor beneath me, it was so hot. I began to dance and twirled around, and all the faces I saw were formiliar. I could tell the names of like half of the students in the crowd, and they said "Hi Insa" and I could answer. I sneezed and someone said "Bless you" and I said "Thanks". He would say "You´re welcome."
And that is exactly how I feel.
You are welcome.


I wish I could share this with you.

I love you.

Insa

Hey everyone,

it´s weekend, finally!

I arrived here in parker, Colorado on July, 31st, and just stated my second month living in the USA. It feels like so much longer - but in the best way. I feel home.

My American family is amazing and perfectly fitting to me. They all have a great sense of humor and like to have a good time. Exept for Sage, Zacks cat. She seems to be kind of aggressive. But no offenses - maybe she´s just shy. ;)

We have made some very fun trips - we went on a hiking trip to Castlerock Canyon, Estes Park and Vail - , went shopping for the Homecoming Dance and so much more.

I´ve been at Ponderosa High School for one month now and I love this school. Everything looks exactly like from High School Musical, especially our gym, that´s really funny. Sometimes I really feel like just dancoing through the hallway, but they are so crowded that it´s hard to find the way to the classes, not to mention dancing. It´s so huge! I think there are about 2000 students at Ponderosa.

I took really good classes; Young Adult Literature and Composition (a great class, we´re reading our favourite books and writing an essay about them), Shape up/ Fitness (we´re doing aerobics and Kaylah, wo takes this class, too, and I , are dancing the Hip Hop Choreo everywhere everytime and making fun of it and ourselves), Trigonometry (sooo much homework!), Women´s Select Choir (we´re singing "You raise me up", "When I am silent", "America" from West Side Story and some other beautiful songs), Theatre III (My favourite class), Contemporary World Issues (my teacher is the best) and US History since 1945. History classes are much fun, because everyone is asking me weird questions. One boy just asked me whether I`d hate foreign people. I just answered: "Yeah, that´s why I´m here!" Or i got asked if all Germans would have blue eyes and blond hair. This was really confusing me, because I´m German and have dark eyes and hair? :) and a boy asked me whether I´d know "Sebastian" :D and whether I could speak fluently German.

I joined the Cross Country team and it is so much fun! I just came home from my second race today, it was in Leadville, about 3 hours from Parker and 5000 feet higher. I had an amazing time. You really need to see the pictures of our black Football-player make-up, which was really cool. I love the team.

Everyone is so motivating and fair. It´s so much fun to cheer for the others and it feels good when the team cheers for you on a race. We had music with us today and we were singing and dancing and cheering for the others.

It´s very interesting to be here during the time when there will be a new president elected. The Democratic National Convention was in Denver (right here!). I heard that John Bon Jovi, Cameron Diaz and Mel Gibson were here (I just wanted to show off a little.)

Some people are actually listening to Rammstein ("Du hast mich") over here. It´s great that they listen to German music, I´m just wondering why not to the good stuff?

Corena cooks really delicious. I love her brownies, I bet they are the best in the world. And I love Starbucks! I know there´s no Starbucks in Flensburg. But when you go to Hamburg or Kiel, search for Starbucks and have a Double Chocolate Chip or Vanilla Bean Frappuchino. You´ll love it. I do. ´

I´m sorry if I can´t answer all of your mails. This is because I come home everyday at 5.30pm and then showering, eating, homework... the time is going by so fast. I´m thinking of you and keeping you in my heart.

Every new day is a gift. That´s why we call it the present.

Insa