Church Prom, short hair, and the beginning of the end

Hi you guys!

It is just crazy how my year abroad is getting closer and closer to the end, and in less than 4 weeks we will see each other again. I still can't really figure out if I'm incredibly happy about that or just plain sad. It for sure is bitter sweet, and I'm enjoying my last couple weeks very much. The weather is beautiful. I'm sitting ouside on the patio right now in shorts and a top and the sun is shining, it's really hot. The pool is going to open this weekend and I'm looking forward to hanging out there with my family and friends again.

Unbelievable, I know, last Thursday was my last day of school here in Colorado, here in America, here during my exchange year. After lots of work and studying for my final exams last Wednesday and Thursday, it was very overwhelming for me to say good bye to my friends, to my teachers. To all those people that became part of my everyday life and that I might now not see ever again.

To switch to a much happier topic; on Friday my friends and I celebrated the last day of school and the summer at Church Prom. My friend Nikki and I got ready together at my house and met everyone else in our group at my friend Caroline's house. We planned it so that all the girls would arrive half an hour before the boys. So us girls were waiting upstairs with our flowers for our dates. One after the other arrived and we walked down the staircase - like in "Plötzlich Prinzessin". It really felt like falling into a movie, it was amazing. We took tons of pictures, of course, some of them you can see above in this post, and then went to dinner together. It was really fun, we split the food which was so romantic :) and then we headed to prom! It looked so pretty. We got to th building and the trees in front were decorated with light chains! Once we got inside it started to rain, so after the dance was over, we all got soaking wet on our way to the cars. Except the girls - the boys were being gentlemen and gave us their tuxedo jackets. It was for sure the best night of my life so far.

Some fun stuff happened since then. I went hiking in Castle Wood Canyon with Mom, Dad and Emma, which was really fun. I also went to the mall with Valentina, we got our hair cut and highlighted to look our best when we return to home! My hair is chin length now, and I have caramel highlights - I'll look very different than you remember me!

Saturday I went to my last orientation from YFU, and that night my friends and I were all hanging out at Tanner's house watching scary movies.

I'll keep you postet on my graduation on Friday and all that jazz.

See ya in a few!

Love always,

Insa

Frühlingserwachen

Hi everyone,

time is running fast and tomorrow begins my last week of school.
Monday night, my Choire, Women´s Select, will perform at school and I´m really excited already. We are singing "Cowboy take me away" by the Dixe Chicks, "Ain´t no mountain high enough", "All that Jazz" from the movie Chicago, and "Angel". I also tried out for a solo; Leaving on a jetplane by John Denver, but the solo artists were not announced yet. So I´ll have to wait till tomorrow morning.
On Friday, the big Graduation ceremony will start at 8 am, in case somebody wants to come by! I heard flights from Germany are really cheap right now! :-)
It will be so exciting, I´m sure. I´ll receive my cap and gown on Thursday, and then we´ll be all set!
Friday, after Graduation, I am going to go to my second prom (I know, I´m spoiled) with all my friends. It´s organized by the church, and it´ll be a blast.
The sun starts to shine again and I hope to get some of the amazingly beautiful sunny days of Colorado before I´m going back to good ol' Germany, and get a little tan!
I´ll keep you postet about the concert and Church Prom!
See ya in 37 days! Holy crap!

All my love,

INSA

Prom - a night to remember

Pictures from Hawaii

Hawaii, Disney World, Excitement!

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

you might wonder why you didn't hear anything from me here in Colorado for a LONG TIME. I apologize for that. At first I was really busy being on vacation and travelling all over the place (sorry, I had to show off a little) and then I messed with my wireless signal of my computer, and my genious hostdad just fixed it by pushing a single button. THANK YOU JAMIE!

Okay, so here we go!

After the Sadie Hawkin's dance, I travelled to Oahu, Hawaii, with circa 150 other exchange students from all over the world. The trip was organized by YFU and Explore America, but we all had to fly there ourselves. I went from Denver, CO (ca. 70°F), to Salt Lake City, UT (ca. 30°F and snow), and from there to Oahu, Hawaii (HOT and sunny). Arriving at the airport, it was crazy. I was so amazed that my baggage didn't get lost, and felt really hot in my long jeans. When I got out of the airport, there were teamers from YFU waiting for me, and I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Katharina and Katrin from my VBT (Vorbereitungstagung) in Germany standing there, too! What an amazing coincidence! It was pretty sweet, we went to the hotel and Katharina and I shared a room with a girl from Russia and a girl from Spain. Our hotel was near the beach and had a pool. I think I took a picture of every single palmtree on the wholeisland, I was just so excited and so mesmerized by the beauty of this incredible piece of nature.
As we arrived at the hotel, each of us received a hawaiian flower beed, and my roommates and I went swimming immediately. There was an other exchange student group just leaving that day we arrived, and, quite honestly, Katharina and I were laughing about all those couples and crying girls, because we didn't believe that you could possibly fall in love or build up such great friendships in one week of vacation.
I have to say, we were all proved wrong!
The one week in Hawaii was one of the funnest and greatest weeks in my entire life. We did so many great things.
We went surfing, which sure was an adventure! The water was the most beautiful and clear turquoise blue I've ever seen, and I actually managed to stay standing up on my surfboard and surf wave after wave. After that we went swimming of course, tried to climb palmtrees, and had some photo shootings. We hiked up the vulcano Diamond Head and had an incredible view over Honolulu and Waikiki and the sea. An other day, we went on an island trip and I had the best pineapple ice cream in the world. We also visited Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, had a Pizza picknick in the park at the beach, watched the fireworks over the sea at night, played lots of beachvolleyball, and had a rallye over, it seemed, the whole island. An other day we went snorkeling and I saw a fish called Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (I'm being serious). The day after that we went sailing on a catamaran and it was a good thing we were all wearing swimsuits, since it was so windy that the waves were huge. We all got so wet! Of course we experienced our first real Lua'u party, too, where we learned how to dance the hula, and had a real traditional Hawaiian meal. One of the best things was riding the old bus together with all the exchange students, because the cabins are opened and it just has a little roof, and we would make The Wave and sing songs like Baby Shark, or just talk to random people in our native language. It is just so fun being with other exchange students. I guess what we all learn as exchange students, is that we are good the way we are. We are just all very self confident and strong in our opinions and values, and we really didn't care what all those other people thought of us. So we would just walk up to street musicians and start dancing, or go swimming at 11 in the Pacific with clothes on (or not), sneak up to the roof of the hotel in the middle of the night and sing and dance, or randomly start singing onstage in a restaurant.
You might think that I'm weird now, but this is the reason why it was one of the most amazing weeks in my life.

After I got home from Hawaii, I went on vacation AGAIN! My host family and I went to Orlando, Florida, where we spent 1 week at the Polynesian Resort in Disney World, and 1 week together with Corena's brother and sister- in- law, Kaylah's boyfriend, and Jamie's parents in a holiday house. We drove all the way to Florida, which was a 2 day drive. This roadtrip was really fun! It felt a little crowded in the car after a while, but the view was just fantastic. It was a real experience watching Colorado's red earth and the brown fields and rocks turn into green grass as we were driving through Oklahoma and Kansas. I loved the southern accent the people had when we were driving through Tennessee and Alabama, and I really enjoyed being called "Ma'am" like in all those movies. I could really get used to boys with Cowboy hats opening the doors for me! Once we werw in Florida, we had great weather and I got really tanned! Kaylah and I had a really fun time bonding.
The Disney Parks were just... magical. Every night I was stunned by the fireworks above the cinderella castle. Those huge lollipops and the castle, meeting Micky Mouse, Minnie, and Pochahontas, going on fun rollercoasters (It just couldn't get too fast for me), eating pineapple vanilla ice cream, again, spending time with my amazing host family, walking around in the parks, watching the lights go on at night and walk, looking at the stars or palmtrees or fireworks or the castle... all those great, wonderful things made me feel like I was in a fairytale. the time just flew by!

And it still is. Time is so crazy. I'm already 17 and I feel really old! Since my 17th birthday I go to dance class at church, and we learn Swing dance, Cha Cha, Waltz, and all that fun stuff. Especially the lifts (Hebefiguren) are so fun! Besides that I'm doing pretty well. I am taking part in our school Theatre production Pride and Prejudice, and it is amazing to hang out with th cast and the crew, and to design the set and the costumes.
Last weekend we got snowed in here in Parker and my friends and I used that opportunity for some fun snowball fights. Emma and Dad built a very pretty snowman, too.
I'm really excited for this weekend. Tomorrow I'll go to School prom, and it will be incredibly exciting! I have a really extraordinary dress, you'll see pictures and hear all the details later.

Love, forever and always.

Insa

An all new me

Yeah, finally i got my Obama shirt! I´ll show my grandkids when I´m old, and I´ll be like: "Yes, your granny was there when history was made."

Hello, and GUTEN ABEND everybody!

I had a fabulous weekend! After a pretty hard week at school with lots of work, a speech, to presentations and two essays due, and Eddie´s funeral, my weekend was perfect relaxation und fun. I´ve been to a candlelight- stretching class with my mom, which was just awesome, and really got the tension out of my body and mind.

All the fun started Saturday morning. I went to the mall with Valentina, to go dress- shopping, and hang out. Spontaneously we went to the hair dresser and got a haircut!

Believe me or not; I got 12 inches off! I donated my hair to an organisation called Locks Of Love. They will make a wig out of my ponytail, for a child who lost his hair because of cancer and a chemotherapy.

It feels great!

Well, after a great day and lots of chocolate cake, we went over to Valentina´s and got ready for the Sadie Hawkin´s dance together. It was the Winter Formal, so we both wore dresses and heels, and took lots of pictures. At the dance we had just so much fun, we danced with a group of friends and it was a blast!

I have to say my feet still hurt!

Just the best wishes from Parker!

Love

Insa

An other posting, I can´t believe it!

Hey you guys,

one more little thing I need to add: I tried to upload the video of me and my friend Tarah singing "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley at the Christmas Choir Concert, but it was too big. It also didn´t work to send it over via e-mail and per skype it would take circa 2 days. I guess you will have to wait 4 1/2 more months for me to show off with it =)

Love, Insa

This is me

Hey there,





Happy New Year!

Here´s a little update for you guys so you´ll know what I´ve been up to since my last entry. A century seems to have past since back then! I apologize... Life rushes way too fast!



My family and I went up to the mountains already four times this season. We went to Winter Park, which is a beautiful Wintersports resort circa 2 hours from Parker. I took my first snowboarding lesson and had such a great time! I learned how to get onto and off the lift without getting killed, losing my board, or run over poor innocent people. I was really proud :) Whoever of you say me doing sports at one point in time, knows why! The view was incredibly beautiful and the snow was way beyond comparison. It was -18°F and freezing cold. I wore 3 layers of clothes, plus snowpants and coat, and even my face was totally covered all the time with a hat, goggles and my scarf over my mouth and nose. I bet they wouldn´t have let me into a bank like that! My hair actually froze! Can you imagine that? It was so much fun though; I learned how to turn and slow down and how to fall on my butt. Last weekend my family and I stayed one day in Copper Mountain, which is a very very pretty ski resort. Kaylah and I went up to the top of the mountain and soon recognized that we weren´t ready for that yet. We had a blast though. We were practising riding on toe- and heeledges (I just try to sound professional) and in the end our legs were so sore, we just sat on our boards and slid down a blue run.

The next event that came up was CHRISTMAS of course! Awaited for a long long time, I almost couldn´t believe it when it was finally there. On Christmas eve, my family and I went to the movies to see Desperaux, which was just the cutest movie! After that, Emma and I had a little, fun photoshoot. We were all dressed up and had curly hair and Emma just looked like an angel. In the late afternoon we went to church. It took us double than the usual time to get there, because the parking lot and the streets were so crowded! It was incredible. Once we arrived, everybody received a candle from the church staff and we went inside. It was a great service and I knew all the songs. On the last song, the lights went off and people started lighting their candles. After a short time, the whole church was shining with all the pretty candles and it was such a touching moment I started crying. It gave me goosebumps. Once we got home, we got the dinner ready and baked reindeer - cookies for Santa Claus. After dinner we unwrapped two presents each. One was the traditional Christmas pyjama (mine is red and green and soooo soft), and I got an other set of PJ´s from my mom´s parents. That was just so sweet, because I never thought I´d get a present from my "host - grandparents", so it was very surprising. The next morning, Emma woke us all up at 7 o´clock and we went downstairs (after lovely sleepy pictures were taken) and - YES - Santa had been there! The milk and cookies were gone and were exchanged with full stockings! In my stocking I even found German chocolate with marzipan, and even a little jar of Nutella, which totally made my day. I got so many wonderful presents I can´t even list them all. But I need to mention the highlights. First, Santa (!) gave me a pink nano iPod for Christmas! I still can´t believe it! Oh and then, Zak and Kaylah got me a Troy from High School Musical made of paper. It´s hilarious. From Dad´s parents, I got a great sweatshirt, that is white and red and it says Canada on it. Now I can finally fit in with my family and their Senators jerseys and I am canadian shirts.
After Christmas we´ve had pretty funny weather - one day it is in the 60s and 70s, and the next morning I´m wearing a T- Shirt and come downstairs in the morning and our backyard is covered in snow. It is exciting.

New years eve was a hard time for me. I always get very melancholic at New Years and this time I was sad because of two reasons: That I couldn´t celebrate it with my German friends and family - and that I have to leave the US already in - now 4 1/2 months! That little crisis lasted for 12 hours probably. =)

My second semester classes are so much fun, but also lots of work. I have been practising a lot for Choire, especially in the shower, and Public Speaking and Theatre. I will give my first speech tomorrow in Speaking. I´m very excited! School is going really well. In every class of mine, I have friends and it is just so great to spend time with them. In the spring, my friend Sydney and I are going to start running again, and keep up our Cross Country training. Then, soon the auditions for the play Pride and Prejudice are going to start and I am going to try out. I´m so excited.... please cross your fingers for me!

I´ve also been at a YFU sleepover. It was the mid- year orientation and really fun. I met all these cool people from all over the world and I also met some students that are comingt to Hawaii with me in February. That´s so soon!!! You can´t believe how excited I am. But on the other handside it is sad for me to count the days till Hawaii since it gets one step closer to returning to good ol´ Germany again.

Last Wednesday something horrible happened - a boy from my school died. He was in my German Club and involved in an exchange student program, so I knew him pretty well. The police is saying it was an accident, but unfortunately they are not allowed to give out any further information. This was a horrible experience for me, and especially for my friend Steph, who is an exchane student from Berlin, who was really close friends with him. On Wednesday we will go to his funeral together. It is really hard for me to understand all this, because it came so all of a sudden. I´ve just been talking to him last Monday. It will take all of us some time to get over this, but I´m very lucky to have great friends that support each other, great, understanding teachers, and a wonderful family that is
so loving. And of course an amazing Mama that talks patiently to me when I called her on Wednesday - crying - at her time 3 am.


Ich liebe euch und ich vermisse euch. Ihr bedeutet mir so viel, das könnt ihr euch gar nicht vorstellen. So ein Austauschjahr macht dir wirklich bewusst wer deine wirkichen Freunde sind und welche Freundschaften wertvoll sind und über 1 Jahr und viele viele Kilometer hinweg bestehen bleiben.

<3 vielen Dank

Love and Kisses

Insa

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