My USA-Highschool-Year in Texas

April

April 25, 2009 at 3:36 am (Uncategorized)

April was a very busy month for me.  I had my last tennis tournaments and I did ok.  My team was pretty good and we won a couple of medals and trophies.  My coach’s son and daughter who play mixed together won the district and made it to the regionals. There they got 3rd place.  Due to the tennis tournaments I missed a lot of school and had to catch up during the week.  That was stressful !  Also I had to write a long report in Physics and Chemistry as a part of projects.  One Saturday I had to come to school early in the morning to take a practice Math test.  This took 3 1/2 hours.  It was hard and I was exhausted after it.  Luckily our teacher ordered pizza from Pizza Hut to eat   The test is like the AP Calculus Test I will take in 2 weeks.  It’s about the matter we have learned throughout the entire year !  Now let’s talk about something else besides school…

My sister visited me for 2 weeks.  She arrived in Dallas and we picked her up after she had traveled for at least 16 hours.  She was tired.  So we let her sleep the next day and then we went shopping in a big shopping center.  It was very much fun to meet a family member again and to speak some German although I had problems doing so.  My sister discovered the advantages of shopping here since everything is a little cheaper.  She bought some t-shirts and other clothes.  I bought 4 t-shirts and 1 pair of shorts.  I got a really good deal one some of those.  Buy 1 and get the next one free

When we were shopping, Damaris made her first experience with American food.  She bought a Cheeseburger from SONIC whereas I was eating a nice sandwich with grilled chicken on it.  I think she liked it but in the same way she thought it was a little to big and to greasy.  In this shopping Center they have a real, I don’t know how to say that in English so I am just gonna say it in German: “Fressmeile”.  About 7 Fastfood places are placed right next to each other and there is also a Starbucks.  The American Dream of shopping

After the weekend Damaris went to school with me.  I think she liked it, even if she was a little bored, because she was just observing the classes.  Everybody in school was really nice to her.

The next weekend was the highlight of Damaris time here.  We met my brother Markus.  We both hadn’t seen him for 8 months.  Damaris, I and Betty took a 2 1/2 hour trip to Grand Saline which is southeast from our house.  The area he is living in looks different then mine.  He has a lot of trees and green fields and it’s hilly.  And when I say a lot of trees, I don’t say nearly as many trees as in Germany.  Just where I live are almost no trees, so it seemed to me like a lot.  There were couple of trees.  Here in Whitesboro and the area it’s very flat and dry.  You can see land until the end of the horizon.  I also saw his nice looking school and their baseball and football field.  While driving we didn’t get bored because we had so much to talk about.   When we arrived at Betty’s house in Whitesboro in evening, everybody was glad to see a bed.  Me and Markus stayed up for a while to watch his movie “The Dark Knight”.  I thought it was ok but not as great as everybody says.  But I had also slept for while during the movie, maybe I had missed something

We left our house early next morning to head towards a suburb of Dallas (Highland Village) where Diane and John and Sam live.  We went to Sam’s soccer game and it was very good to see real soccer again. The quality was not nearly as good as in Germany.  But we all had fun watching it.  For lunch we got some burgers from Sonic.  It tasted really good.  Then we drove to John’s house and watched some Premier League soccer on TV.  John is from Britain.  After one game I, and Markus were so tired that we went to sleep for about 2 hours.  We needed that because on the same day we went to a Nickleback  concert in Dallas.  It took us a terribly long time to get to the stage, because we got stuck in the traffic.  I had the feeling everybody in Dallas was going to that one concert.  Finally at about 8 p.m. instead of 7, we arrived.  But we didn’t miss parts of Nickleback’s peformance, because another smaller band was playing before the showdown. ” Seether” is the band’s name.  I enjoyed listening to them.  At 9 p.m. Nickleback started playing and it was a nice show with nice pyro effects   The crowd was going crazy and they were way better live than in the recordings.  It was raining for a short pediod of time but nobody seemed to be bothered by that.  It was an open air concert.  Everything was over at about 11 p.m.. Then everybody tried to get out of there as fast as they could.  Soon I realized why.  The traffic was a disaster.  We didn’t get out of the parking lot for about half an hour.  Nothing moved !! It was awful !!  Then slowly the line of cars starting moving in small steps. 2 meters now, and then waiting for 5 minutes. Then another 2 meters.  After about 1 hour we finally made it out of the parking lot.  Then we entered onto the highway and the traffic was fluent.  We got home by about 1:30 a.m.  We slept long and the next day was a lot of fun.  We had lasagne for lunch which was pretty good.  Then we played Nintendo Wii.  I was unbeatable in Tennis but in Baseball and Golf Markus won…  My sister didn’t have a chance

In the afternoon we brought Markus to the workplace of his hostfather in Dallas (IBM).  Afterwards Damaris, John and I stopped at the JFKennedy memorial in downtown Dallas.  It was interesting to see where he was shot.  There was a cross on the street.  Some idiots ran on the street just to stand on the cross for a second.  We also saw the window from which the deadly shot came from.

During the week Damaris and I went to a baseball game of my school.  I think baseball is probably the most boring sport after darts, but she seemed to like it.  Unluckily our team lost the game.

I was glad to meet my sister and brother again and we had a lot of fun.  My brother didn’t grow a lot, he just got stronger.  I think he had lost weight.  I got taller and stronger and heavier since I am here.

My sister was already gone when I was inducted in the National Honor Society.  An organization with the ideals of leadership, scholarship, service and character.  All juniors (11th graders) with a grade point average over 3.0 (highest is 4.0) were invited to join.  There were about 17 inductees.  We had to say a pledge (promise) to promise loyalty to the school and organization.  The ceremony was good and after that we could eat homemade cookies.  Very good by the way.  All the inductees got an envelope that included a certificate, a membership card, and a patch to sew on the leather jacket.

This week school is not as stressful as normally because the TAKS (Texas Acknowledge something) tests are being taken by all 9-11th graders.  It’s similar to “Lernstandserhebungen” in Germany, just the Taks tests don’t affect the grade in the classes.  You just have to pass them to be able to graduate and get your diploma.  Due to these tests, a lot of classes are cancelled.  Today 2 of my classes were cancelled and I had to hang around in the cafeteria. It’s a lost time, because you can’t sleep and you also can’t do something productive.  At least I don’t have so much stress.  But in 1-2 weeks I have to take the AP Calculus and the AP Physics Test.  They will last for 4 hours and be pretty hard.  So I have to study for that…

That’s all I can think of what’s happening here.  We have some sunny and warm weather.  The Dallas Mavericks (basketball team) are doing good in the playoffs.  So everything is going fine and I have 1 more month of school to go.  Then my parents come over here for two weeks and we make some holidays         I’m looking forward to that.

Greetings,

Simi