All Emotional

I slept in again today. Really need to do things in the mornings so that I don't spend half of my day sleeping since my classes aren't until later in the afternoon most days. Heidi stopped by around 12 and wanted to go get coffee or something since she didn't have any classes. But I was getting ready to walk down to Bismarckplatz to meet with the head of the German American Institute about my internship. Since she didn't have anything going on, she walked down there with me and just read while I had my meeting. I was really nervous about the whole thing because I didn't really know what I was doing. We had emailed a few times this week, but he just told me to come to his office, 2nd floor. In Europe, the 2nd floor isn't the same as it is in the US. If there are stairs, then the floor that you get off of when you walk up the stairs is the first floor. The one below that is just the bottom floor. So I wanted to make sure I went to the right 2nd floor. There weren't any signs on the walls directing me as to which office belonged to whom. So luckily there was a guy walking around and just ask I got ready to ask him where this guy's office was, all I could think of was his first name! So I had to ask for the Director by his first name. Ahhh. He of course knew who I was talking about and took me there. The Director, Jakob, was so nice! He was very welcoming and friendly from the moment we met! We talked about all kinds of things and what I wanted to do for my Praktikum. I really don't know exactly, but we decided that I'd create my own event for the Institute and then would develop the PR materials and then oversee the event itself. I'm going to work some with the library to try and create a program in that department. Sounds like a challenge, but also very interesting. So if anyone has any great ideas, I'd love to hear them! The whole meeting was in English, which was nice since I was so nervous and wanted to make sure that I understood exactly what I would be doing. But Jakob started off in English immediately and I didn't even have to ask to switch. I will be spending 8 hours/week there and I think it will be very beneficial.

As Heidi and I were walking to a cafe, Jeff rode up on his bike. We asked if he wanted to come too and of course he did. I felt kind of bad though because we were walking and he was on his bike so he had to go really slow. That's kind of frustrating and hard to do on the street we were on because there are cars and bikes everywhere and the street is really little. But we made it and we went to a little place called the Drugstore. It was nice, I just really don't like the name! This is mainly because it isn't fitting at all. The cafe seems pretty classy and has a few chess boards on the some of the tables. But the woman told us that they have a student discount, so that's something we can totally handle! We sat there talking for probably an hour or so and then went back to Heidi's. She was letting Jeff borrow some of her German CDs and we listened to them as she suggested different bands and artists. Jeff and I had class at 4:15 so we left after awhile and headed back on my busy little street.

There were SO many AJY students in this class! I'm thinking around 12 or so. It's called German language in songs and pop music. A few of my friends took it last semester and really liked it. I saw a few people I recognized from last semester and that was really exciting. The professor seems really cool, funny, nice, etc. I think I'm going to enjoy this class a lot. After class I heard someone calling my name as I was walking down the hall. It turned out to be my friend Erin who was in the film class with me last semester. She said she was worried that I wasn't coming back and that she was so excited to see me. We talked for about 10 minutes about all kinds of things. She's sooo nice!

Since class got over somewhat early, I just went back to my apartment and hung out for awhile. Heidi and I were meeting our new friend Allison at the train station at 7:30. Neither of them were there when I arrived so I waited a little while and then got some chocolate for the walk to Charis'. We were starting up the weekly Bible study again and were going to walk to Charis' with Allison. As I was leaving the train station, I saw Allison walking up and then as we started walking again, I saw Heidi. It was all sort of confusing, but we all got together and made it to Charis'. We started at John 1 again and we had really good discussions and I learned some new things. Tonight was the biggest group we've ever had. Pretty cool!

For some reason i was super emotional tonight and was in a weird mood. After I split off from Maressa, Heidi and Maressa's friend who was visiting, I started to cry. I really want to make this second semester worth it, but as of yet I don't feel that I am. It haven't spoken as much German as I want to and it's just weird having all of these new people here. But then I have to remind myself that I have only been here for one week and half of that time was spent in Berlin and recovering from Jet lag! And I had also asked Heidi if she wanted to come back and watch a movie, but she said she was going to go home and read. That just made me feel kind of crappy. You ask someone to hang out, but they'd rather read? I tried to reason with it in my head and think that if there was a book that I was really into, maybe I would want to just read too instead of hanging out. So I cried for a little while and then after I calmed down, I heard a knock at my window. Of course it was Heidi. She said that she got home and realized that of course she didn't want to go home and read and that she did want to come over and hang out. So then we talked about why I was so upset and it just made me cry more. For some reason I miss home more this time around. I miss my friends and I miss my family a lot. But it's only a few months and this is something that I really want to do. Heidi and I also talked about how I can make sure that I make the most of my time here. I think one of the main things is just speaking German more and not being nervous about doing so. We figured out another one of my problems is that I don't really like change and there's been quite a bit of change since I arrived. Like 20+ new people! I hope I'm done with this whole crying thing, because it's totally not me. I mean, I am quite emotional, but not usually like this!