Happy Birthday to Suzanne Nicholson!!
Congratulations to myself- I made Dean's List! I never checked my grades from last semester because I never think I will do well, even though I have a GPA that is decent…;-) I am extremely proud of myself because I had a rough semester with getting sick so often, working a lot and just taking all 400 level classes.
Today I woke up ready to conquer the day. I enjoyed the good night's sleep I received! I just love it! Today was told to be a long day, but I think as a group, we handled everything well!
We ate our normal breakfast and went on our favorite Coach bus to go to Aachen Germany. We arrived at the EGS Annaschule which is a protestant primary school in the middle of the city of Aachen. It only has 193 students but they represent 43 different countries! This female principal was super nice, and had a warm sense about her. It was interesting to learn that most of the students in this school did not practice the protestant religion. This seems different from what I know about religious schools back in the US. If I were to go to a Catholic school, I would prefer to be Catholic. I couldn't imagine going to a Jewish high school, when I was brought up Catholic. I think this displays how open Europeans can be. Because this school is so close to the border of the Netherlands, there is 'international flair' as the principal called it.
In the classroom, we were really only put in back of the classroom to observe. The kids had a lot of free time and it seemed like the class was a little out of control. I hate to say it, but I didn't get as much out of this school visit because Christina and I were not involved in the class.
This school is having problems with low enrollment but they have a ton of extra resources that I would think is a 'selling' feature of the school. This school offers a parent coach which stays in touch with parents by telling them what the children are doing in school. This occurs every Wednesday for 2 hours. This is essential to keep parents aware of what is going on in the classroom. Because a lot of the parents did not go to school in Germany, they don't know the language and this leads to parents wanting the child to go their own thing. So therefore, this parent coach is fabulous to bridge the language barrier. One other interesting thing that the principal mentioned is that they have a partner school in Holland so Dutch teaches come over to teach Dutch one a week and their German teachers do the same thing for the students in Holland. I think this is wonderful and wish they had a Dutch teacher come in more than just once a week, but it is a great start.
The Germany schools have central testing in the 3rd and 8th grade so there is no CITO test. But there is another exam to get into college. Apparently the universities in Germany are behind the USA. This makes me proud of our higher education system. :D
For lunch, we walked to a pub place for sandwiches and delicious bean soup! Nick got us lost, as usual. But I know it's hard to have his job! We only had about 40 minutes in Aachen, which was not enough. I didn't even get to buy anything, but it was still enjoyable to walk around and look at all the shops. The architecture in this city was especially pretty in my opinion. ;]
Next, we went to the bus and of course lost Jake in the mean time…and once we found him, we were on our way to the Three Country Point. Wait. Did I mention it is snowing?!?! It's more like I ran to the Three Country Point and took a few photos and ran back. I was the first on the bus, embarrassing? Nope. I may be from NY but I hate the snow and that is why I went south for college.
Next, we had the American WWII Memorial in the Netherlands. This is where Americans are resting. There are over 8,000 people buried. :( The tour guide was super great at explaining what happened during WWII. I was so cold but he told us that the soldier were even colder than us in the 1940s. I appreciated his remarked and for lack of a better phrase, sucked it up. We went into the cemetery and picked a soldier to relate to and I touched his tombstone and said a prayer and thanked him. I had Richard from New York and he died on May 21, 1945. It was sad experience but I was thankful because they fought for our freedom.
Onto the bus we went and back to our Castle. While Anna, Christina, and Amy ordered pizza, I waited 2 and a half hours to eat my apple and peanut butter sandwich! We ended up eating at 8:30pm. I was hungry but I couldn't bring myself to eat pizza. I am so sick of Italian food! I just want some veggies, chicken breast, and red quinoa. haha I so prefer to cook my own food so I actually know what it being put into my food! I can't wait to try new recipes this semester. Okay so after dinner, Amy, Anna, and I put in a few hours into our presentation. I think we worked well together. I enjoyed the brainstorming we did and how we included a discussion session in our presentation.
I talked to my mom, dad, and brother today for the first time during the trip. It might have only been a 10 minute conversation, but it was fabulous! I have such supportive and laid-back parents. I love them so much. They are always there for me and would be happy with whatever I did with my life. I just love coming from a loving family. While we may have our issues, I think I am so independent and successful as a person because of them! :)
I went to bed pretty easily today because I just loved the full amount of sleep I received last night! <3
No comments:
Post a Comment