All I Have is Christ

Wow, I'm back in Germany for more than two months already and today was the first time that I went to church since July 24! I decided I wanted to check out the church I went to with my family - that would be once a year: Christmas - before I came to America, but I kept finding 'excuses' why I couldn't go.

I got so mad at myself because I didn't do anything, I think in the last 2 months I read my Bible once completely on my own - I listened to the sermons from Calvary that are online so I read a few passages along - so I did quiet time once. I don't even know why I think it's so hard, it really isn't! Back in America I thought it would be so though to find a church that I would like to go to and stay confident in my faith.

I didn't go to church the first Sunday because we took my brother to the airport (he went to Ecuador do to voluntary work for a year) and after that I just found a whole lot of reasons why I didn't go.

Last Monday me and my mom visited my Godmother, because it was her birthday, and I talked to her daughter for quite a while! She asked me if I wanted to borrow a couple of books from her and she gave me "When God Writes Your Love Story" by Eric and Leslie Ludy. I started reading it yesterday when I took a break from studying for my drivers license test and I really like it - I'm only on page 48 though... I am a really slow reader. Anyway, when I read it I realized how much I pushed God away the last couple of month and I started watching Fireproof, knowing it would remind me of the greatness of Him! I felt so good when I went to bed last night :)

Then this morning I woke up at 8.45am to get ready to BIKE (I usually hate biking, I'm just not the biggest sports fan, but it is so nice outside and my parents were still sleeping...) to church. It is so cool that I went this Sunday because it was the best sermon I ever experienced in Germany! The church has a sister church in Ghana and works together with a missions organization. They had a choir from Africa come to our church and the songs were so beautiful. Plus it was a very long sermon (2 hours) compared to the usual ones (45 minutes) so it was a lot closer to what I am used to from Calvary :) And another awesome thing: they translated most of it in English for the choir. I know it sounds weird but I still understand English way better than German. There are a couple of old words that are used quite often in church that I don't know so it was nice to have the English translation :D

My school offers a retreat for 10th grade (my grade) every year to a former monastery. They take 30 people every year. Here in Germany we have Religion class in school, but if you want to you can pick Philosophy instead beginning in 9th grade. If there are more than 30 people signed up for the retreat they'll prefer the students that chose Religion and if they still have to many, they will draw the names. I'm really excited for this and hope I'll be able to go.

I love all of the Animation videos from Sovereign Grace Music, but this is definitely my favorite one so far.
It is so incredible and almost always makes me cry.

Please pray for me that I take my time to read God's Word more often and trust in Him!
I miss you guys ♥

Paradise

School started :)

Actually it did about 3 weeks ago already (September 7th), but I didn't find the time yet to write a post about it!
Since our school system is a little different, we don't have the same schedule every day, so this is mine:

Monday:

1. Geography
2. Geography
3. Social Science/Economics
4. Social Science/Economics
5. Biology
6. Biology
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. PE
9. Religion

Tuesday:

1. English
2. English
3. - OPEN -
4. - OPEN -
5. Social Science/Economics
6. Biology
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. - OPEN -
9. Math

Wednesday:

1. English
2. Art
3. - OPEN -
4. - OPEN -
5. History
6. History

Thursday:

1. German
2. German
3. Religion
4. Religion
5. PE
6. PE
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. Math (extra lesson because I just don't get it xD)
9. Chemistry

Friday:

1. Art
2. Art
3. Math
4. Math
5. Chemistry
6. Chemistry
7. - LUNCH BREAK -
8. History
9. Geography
10. German

We start school at 7.45am and our breaks between class aren't all 5 minutes long, so here are the times to my schedule:

1. Period: 7.45-8.30
2. Period: 8.35-9.20
3. Period: 9.40-10.25
4. Period: 10.30-11.15
5. Period: 11.25-12.10
6. Period: 12.15- 1.00
7. LUNCH BREAK for 1 hour
8. Period: 2.00-2.45
9. Period: 2.55-3.40
10. Period: 3.45-4.30

My school - Niklas-Luhmann-Gymnasium

That means I get out of school at 3.40pm on Monday, technically 3.40pm too on Tuesday but I have saxophone lesson right after so I'm not home before 4.45pm. On Wednesday school ends at 1pm for every student because the teachers have conferences and on Thursday I'm out at 3.40 again and Friday it's 4.30pm...
School days are sooo long, but occasionally we get some periods off when teachers aren't in school because they are sick or on a class trip. Because my English teacher was gone last week I didn't have to go to school till 11.25am :) That was nice. I miss being able to sleep long in the morning because school doesn't start until 8.20 - I miss Apollo!

Well anyway it feels good to be back in school after my super long vacation this year (from May 26-September 7... my classmates only had from end of July to September :D).

I'm also repeating my year that I 'missed' in school here while I stayed in Minnesota. Turns out to be a really good decision, because a lot of other exchange students I know that are continuing in their old grade are struggling already! My new grade is awesome even if a lot of my classmates are about 2 years younger than I am - I got into 1st grade with 7yrs., most kids are 6 :)

I talked to 8th and 9th graders and their parents about doing an exchange year on our annual information night about exchange programs and it was sooo much fun sharing a couple stories.

Well anyway I'm a little busy too now with getting my driver's license so I don't know when I'll be able to post again...
Hope it'll be soon though!

Paradise

The hardest part

So now that I got the Family Trip post out of the way I still have a lot more to catch up on!
At first I really had a lot of stuff to do so that I didn't get the chance to blog more but then I also didn't really want to finish the post, because it made me a little sad thinking about everything again!

I had so much fun on our trip and the whole rest of the year so that it's really hard to just finish it up like that.

Anyway. 'The hardest part' was going back to Germany, not knowing when I come back to America (it's definitely a 'when' and not an 'if' though!).

I was pretty busy with packing my 3 suitcases - which I started doing about a week before I left. And even though there were 3 suitcases with lots of room I still had tons of clothes I gave to Holly and Hope because I just couldn't take them with me :)

My last Sunday at church and Youth Group made me pretty sad. I asked Josh if I could come up front during Youth Group to thank everybody and say goodbye. When I did that everybody gathered around me and prayed for me and that already made me cry :(
Thinking about it again right now makes me wanna go back right now - especially with school starting tomorrow :D

On Wednesday we had a Goodbye Party for me which was pretty amazing! I have no clue how many people came to say goodbye but there were a lot and it was so nice to see everyone ones more before I left!

That night I finished up packing everything while Mitch was playing XBOX 360. I asked him when we will leave and he really freaked me out when he said 8 AM. We ended up leaving at 7 and that was totally enough time but still made me worry a little that I might miss my plane which took of at 10:56AM (you now being there 2 hours earlier made it 8:56 plus driving for about 1 1/2 hours is 7:26 and then usually you should plan with traffic so I would have left at 6 xD) Anyhow we were just fine and not that I would have complained if I missed it and would have had to stay in America a little more :)

I felt a little sick that morning and like I would throw up every moment (probably because of all the emotions...) so I decided to sleep on the way to Minneapolis.

Arriving at the airport I checked in my suitcases and then we still had some time to take pictures - which you can see on Steph's blog :) Then it was time to say goodbye which was definitely the 'hardest part' of the day and the worst goodbye I ever had! Not knowing when you see your family again really isn't fun at all!

When I walked down to my gate I was crying pretty bad and a airport person even asked me if he could help me somehow. I was so messed-up I forgot to go through the security check correctly: I left my shoes and belt on, didn't take my laptop out of my bag at first, didn't empty out my pockets...
Oh dear I made some people mad :)

I bought an 6-hour-energy-shot because I forgot to buy one earlier. It's good to have when you have such a long way to go and don't want to be sleepy when you arrive :)

Then I went to my gate (E6) and waited till it was boarding time. I sat next to a woman who was really nice and we talked a lot about being an exchange student etc. It was nice talking to her and it kept me from being to sad. She had EarPlanes and said she would give me her extra pair if I wanted it. It helped so much and I was really glad she gave them to me.

In Chicago I went straight to my gate because I was afraid to miss my flight like I almost did coming to the US. I met another exchange student from Germany who was there with Rotary and a missions group who went to Ukraine for 3 weeks.
In the airplane I was sitting right in front of the 'wall' between the business and economy class so I had a lot of room for my legs :D I wasn't able to watch the movies or anything because we didn't have a screen in front of us but I just watched a couple movies on my iPod :)

Arriving in Germany I had to wait a little long to get all my suitcases and my saxophone but once I had it I got to my family really quick! My parents, my brother and my aunt and uncle picked me up and it was a fun way back home!

Well now I'm home for over a month already and it's weird thinking about heading back to my German school tomorrow. I also started having driver's lessons so I can get my license as soon as possible. Fun times!

Again I will recommend Steph's blog post about me leaving on July 28th! 

The hardest part

Inner Peace

Okay Sally, since you decided not to pick up your phone and didn't let me talk to you, I will have to write this blog post for your birthday!

Happy Birthday Japaner!

I enjoyed our time together at Apollo sooo much. It is just so funny to be around you. You are one of the best friends I've ever had and I want to thank you for being such a great person :)

I will never forget the time that we spent together:

• all the Pep-Band events
• going out to eat with Tony
• concerts
• band rehearsals
• A-lunch during Trimester 2
• the car ride to the school and home
• Graduation
• the Graduation Party
• the different dances
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• and all the time that we will hopefully spend together before I leave :)

I'm so glad I got to teach you some German and I just love listening to your German talking! I'm proud of you for learning sooooo quickly it was just crazy how fast you picked everything up and started talking to me in German so that I couldn't answer because I already forgot my German :D
I hope you'll have fun with my German dictionary!

Deutsche and Japanerin :)

Stay as awesome as you are my little Panda!
I know I will miss you a lot so don't you EVER forget me - you promised to come visit me in 3 years!

Ich liebe dich :)

Inner Peace

P.S.: I promise you, you are good enough to sit in THAT classroom, you won't have to watch everybody through the windows and wait to go to the dummy classes with the scary special teacher ;)

P.P.S.: I love the way you pronounce the German 'ch'!

On my way

Graduation was awesome!
In case you couldn't watch it and you really want to you can click on 'alt play' on this page :)

I can't believe I'm done with my high school year now! It was so much fun getting to know all these people and to see what school in America is like.
It's also really weird to already have summer vacation now since they start in 2 months in Germany and I'm really not used to getting out of school this early :D

Anyway, the graduation ceremony was great and I totally love the speeches!

The senior speaker Adam Logeman

On Thursday morning we all met at Apollo at 8:20 for the senior breakfast and the slideshow and we then went to the Civic Center to rehears the ceremony - how we were supposed to walk, what order, what to do at what point of time, stuff like that. When we were done it was about noon and Tony, Sally and I went to have lunch together at an Asian restaurant. It was so much fun! Since Tony is an exchange student from Japan and Sally's mom is Japanese, Sally and Tony usually talk Japanese to each other and it's just so funny to guess what they are talking about :D

We then went back home and at 7pm we had to meet at the Civic Center again to line up. The ceremony actually started a little late I think and lasted about two hours. Each person had a card with their name on that we handed the teacher that was supposed to read our name. I crossed my real name out and spelled it KAH-TA-RINA BOH-NEN-CAHMP (instead of Katharina Bohnenkamp) so that she knows how to pronounce it :)

Giving her my name card

Receiving my certificate (instead of a diploma)

Since I am an exchange student and by far didn't get enough credits to really graduate I got a certificate instead of a High School Diploma :)
After that we all met outside in a different hall (were we lined up alphabetically before the ceremony) to congratulate everybody and to take pictures.

Caleb and I after the ceremony

My certificate

And again!

We got a very pretty case for the diploma and certificates with "St. Cloud Apollo High School" on the front, then when you open it Apollo on the top and the certificate/diploma on the bottom. My certificate says:

This certifies that

Katharina Bohnenkamp
has earned a total of twelve Senior High School Credits as prescribed 
by the Board of Education, and in recognition thereof is awarded this 
Certificate
In Witness whereof, our signatures are hereunto affixed.
Given at St. Cloud, in the State of Minnesota,

This month of May, 2011

Elle and Kim came :) SO nice to see them there

Jillayne :)

Sally - my funny half-japanese friend :)

Tony - my full-japanese friend :D

Tony, me and Sally

Melissa, Jillayne and Allison

Savannah and me

Kenzie and me

And my choir teacher :)

After that we drove back home so I could change clothes and Mitch then took me to Apollo for the Senior Lock in. It was soooo much fun! When you arrived they gave you 10 tickets and 10 'Eagle Bucks' (our school mascot is Eagle...). With every ticket you could play games to win more 'Eagle Bucks'. Every 'Eagle Buck' brings you 10 tickets but you also could buy a raffle ticket for 10 ' Eagle Bucks' or prices. I bought about 22 different raffle tickets and a $5 gift certificate for Crafts Direct (that was 10 'Eagle Bucks'), a bracelet (20 'Eagle Bucks') and 2 "Free Pancake Dinner with Beverages" gift certificates for Perkins (20 'Eagle Bucks').

At 2:30am the games and karaoke stopped and they gave away all the prizes, we played Deal-or-No-Deal and there was a Hypnotist Show. At 5am it was over and Sally gave me a ride back home. So I was home at 5.30am and I eventually fell asleep at 6.20. It was crazy but lots of fun :)

On my Way

Dancing Queen

Prom was on Saturday!

Here are pictures from the Grand March taken for the St. Cloud Times :)

The whole day was so much fun! I made dough for (German) pancakes before I went to Laura's house where we got ready together. I think I arrived at around 1pm and I took a shower right away :D Since our water heater was broken I wasn't able to take a shower on Friday! After that we both started to do our hair - Laura had already started to curl here hair when I came and I twisted my hair (strand by strand) and used bobby pins to put them up. That way my hair got even more curly :) I sprayed them again with water and put a towel on my head so that I won't drip on the floor.
After that I put lotion all over and started my makeup.

We were ready to go taking pictures at 4pm but we visit Laura's neighbor very quick to show her our dresses.

Here we are with her neighbor :)

Because it was raining a little Steph had the idea to go to the library instead of Munsinger Gardens. The library has huge windows - we would get a lot of light - so that's why we went there. Steph wanted to take our pictures but Obadiah started crying while she was getting my flower (corsages) so she stayed home. Laura's mom had a lot of funny ideas for the pictures:

• 'Normal' ones in the entry way where they have big blue peaces of glass with very pretty pictures on them (they kind of matched our dresses)
• in the glass elevator 
• us sitting at the desk, working with the computers and having big headphones on
• sitting in the reading corner on very comfy couches, legs on the table and reading books that - again - were matching our dress color
• in a corner between the glass front and a bronze looking wall, me leaning at the glass and Laura at the wall
• walking down the stairs

Normal in front of the glass things

And a little further out so you can see the dresses better

"Working" with computer

It was funny :)

And again with the books

Leaning at the window and wall

A little closer

After that we went back to Laura's house so she could get her car and we then went to the Grand March together (her mom and brother stayed home and came a little later so they don't have to wait there forever).

Her dress is sooo puffy :) She said it was very hard to drive!

There we met all the other people already waiting in line.

Jillayne and me

Jillayne and Laura

After that we went home to my place very quick where Steph took some more pictures and we also picked up dough to make German pancakes at Laura's house. Steph posted the pictures on facebook!

So then about 5 minutes later we went back to Laura's house changed out of our dresses and into comfy stuff to make the pancakes so that out dresses don't get ruined!

Laura's room - just a little chaos after our 'attack' :D

The pancakes were great! We had berries, applesauce, sirup, granola, fruit with yogurt and cinnamon&sugar with them!
Because I love sweet stuff pancakes is basically the only thing that I ever cook when I'm hungry so I memorized the recipe and prepared the dough before I left to Laura's house, but I forgot it at home so we stopped by to pick it up :) Our German pancakes are a lot thinner than American ones and in general look more like crêpes. Here is a picture that I found online that looks pretty close, we didn't take any :D

After that we got ready again and Laura's mom took us to the dance.

Sally and Laura

It was so hot in there that my lens was all foggy - that's why I didn't take a whole bunch of pictures...

It was sooo much fun getting ready with Laura! We listened to 'Mamma Mia' almost the whole time, so that's why I picked Dancing Queen as a title :)

Dancing Queen

High School

Oh I like school sooo much here!

Especially Anatomy&Physiology! I just wanted to post some multiple questions from my Mastery Test that I got for the Exam tomorrow. It's on the cardiovascular system and I really enjoyed studying that chapter. We dissected deer hearts and I just love the fact that we do so much things in labs and don't just talk about everything. It's very interesting to actually look at some things :)

Anyway here are the questions:

1. Rheumatic fever damages the...
a) walls of the ventricles
b) walls of the atria
c) membranes that cover the heart
d) valves of the heart

2. The visceral pericardium is also known as the
a) epicardium
b) myocardium
c) endocardium

3. The structures that prevent the mitral and tricuspid valves from swinging into the atria during ventricular contraction are the...
a) cordae tendineae
b) papillary muscles
c) endocardium
d) Purkinje fibers

4. The aortic bodies containing pressoreceptors and chemoreceptors are located in the...
a) ascending aorta
b) aortic arch
c) aortic sinuses
d) descending aorta

5. Venous blood flow is maintained by all but which of the following factors?
a) blood pressure
b) skeletal muscle contraction
c) vasconstriction of veins
d) respiratory movements

My mastery test has 65 questions of these, some are easier some are harder. It would be cool if some people comment and write their answers to the questions :) I will publish the solution with my next post.

Now I will study some more!

High School

A whole new world

First school day! It was soooo awesome.

My bus came at about 7:50 a.m (my German classmates would sit in their classroom for 5 minutes by that time :D) and I arrived school at about 8. I went straight into room 110 which is a music and my Symphonic Band room to bring my saxophone and my sports bag in the locker. It's big enough for both of them and I hadn't enough time to go to my volleyball/sports locker as well.

After that I went to the office to hand a form in which I have to send to my German school (no mom I didn't forget that ^^). When I'd done that I had to go to room 717 which is my 'Planning room'.  The school here is 'A whole new world' for me because nearly everything is different than in Germany - but better.

For example the schedule:
I have the same classes every day and only 7 periods and not 10 like some of my classmates in Germany :) Here we have a 6-day-system. That doesn't mean that I have to go to school 6 days a week but that each school day has a number between one and six and some classes aren't on each day (e.g.: Concert Band is day 2,4 and 6). We all got a Calendar which is similar to this one but we have the numbers of the days on it.
Today is 1, Thursday is 2, Friday is 3, Monday is 4, Tuesday is 5, Wednesday is 6, Thursday is 1, Friday is 2,...

I know that is so confusing when you're not used to it. So to get back to the planning room I was 'talking' about: We'll meet every Day 6 from 8:20-8:50. The planning room is new this year but it'll be easier for the teacher to give us informations. It was difficult in the past because not all seniors have the same classes so a lot of teacher had to give them the information during classes and the other students (juniors, etc.) were bored. So I think that's why they changed it. Now they separated between grades and last name. In my room are all students who are seniors and have a last name which starts with Ber-Cal (I think - but doesn't really matter anyway :P).

After planning room I had US History in room 428 (by the way when you have a map of the school - bird's eye view - the rooms are like you have your numbers on a phone. All rooms which start with a 1 are on the left side on the top, rooms like 501 are in the center of the school...). My teacher told us about the class, what we are going to do during the upcoming year, the grading procedure and what kind of rules she has in her room. After that we got our huge and heavy books from the library where I also find out what my ID number is :)

Second period is Anatomy and Physiology which is veery interesting and I think I'll learn a lot of things I could need when I'll study medicine :) We already wrote a little vocab test where we had to connect the Latin/medicine words with their explanations. It was a bit hard because I didn't always understand the English words which were used in the explanation text, but I think I did quite good.
We are going to write our next test on Tuesday and then we'll get grades for it, so I better start learning :)

Next class is College Prep. Algebra which is way easier than I thought it would be, but I feel like it will get harder with the next weeks :D We got a paper with a few little exercises on it.
Here are some examples:

1. a(3b-8) when a=2, b=5

2. 24:8-2
3. 11a+6c+4a-a
4. 2³ (multiply) 2⁴

When I got that sheet I thought it was a joke because it's a class for juniors and seniors, but I think I really shouldn't go to far out on a limb :D (I hope you really use that saying in English... found it on LEO ^^)

Afterward I had Language Art which was awesome! We had to find a partner, got 15 question and had to write down the answer of the partner. After we'd done that we should choose two answers which we wanted to present so that we get to know each other. That was a lot of fun. When we wrote down the answers we listened to music by the way, same for Anatomy and Physiology :D

Then I had Women's Choir where we actually didn't really sing but talk about our summer. Well we practiced scales and stuff like that. However the class was super fun :)

To go on with music my next class was Symphonic Band where we just tested our knowledge about music, like how to read it and how long you have to play a note or what words like 'allegro' mean :)

Last class was Health II where our teacher read two children's stories. We should say what we think about it and what the message would be. It was fun to hear a kids story in High School :P

After Health I which was over at 3:10 pm I had volleyball practice from 3:30-5:30. I was soo hard this time because our coach didn't like the attitude we had yesterday during the came. We lost, same as varsity, every other team (JV1, Freshmen A, Freshman B) won, and we played horrible. So however we had to do our stations - which are about 26 or something and every one takes 25 or 35 seconds. When we would have stopped during an exercise we would have to start over again at station 1 so because we really didn't want to do that we were all very exhausted afterward. Then we practiced hitting, serving and 'communication on the court'. That communication thing is that you shout 'mine' or 'got it' as soon as you want to play a ball. We really need to learn that!

I just noticed that I didn't finished my math homework yet...so I stop that here. I think I wrote enough today and I also think that this is my longest blog post ever :P

A whole new world

Something to Say

Steph, the kids and I watched a video on youtube today and I just feel like I need to post something about it! 

It's actually a very cool, but also weird, coincidence that that's the name of the song: 'Something to Say'.

When we went to church last Sunday, I kept thinking that everybody should come over to America on Sundays and go to church here :) It's just so different and a lot more interesting than the church I used to go to in Germany. In fact I was kind of surprised  that I understand nearly everything and it just felt good, because I was a bit afraid that I'll just sit there without understanding anything (LOL).

So that was a very short post, but have a look (and listen!) at/to the video, add what it says here and there you have a looong blog post!

Something to Say

Back to school again

Tomorrow I will go to 'my' American school for the first time :) It's not my first school day, but I'm going to choose what subjects and activities I would like to attend as soon as school starts (September 7).
It's the Apollo High School here in Saint Cloud, Minnesota ^^

I'm pretty excited to find out, what kind of subjects I'll be able to chose. They will be a lot more and different than in Germany I think.

Since the name of my blog is 'Kathi's Music', I decided that I probably should upload parts that include music. So that's why the titles of my blog posts are names of songs. I also add a link to a video that has the song :)

Back to school again