And now for some updates on what went on last month! October was pretty action packed with many adventures and also just regular school life. (I'm just going to write about events as I remember them - they're not in chronological order).
I got a B+ on my first Trigonometry test!!!!!!!!! It was literally one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me in my whole life. (Math is really not my thing - especially not when it's being taught in another language). I had been so confused about what we were learning, but then one day I asked a girl in my class if she could help me during our free period, and then it was as if a light bulb had gone off in my head...The problems weren't so impossible after all! (And fortunately my teacher didn't make us exchange students do the two word problems on the test, because we would've needed way too much extra time to attempt translating). I think I literally might have to buy a frame for this test so I can keep it forever. Or maybe I'll just put it in my scrapbook.
I went to Poland!!! Well, it was only for an afternoon to bring my host grandmother to a dentist appointment, but I think it's still fair to add it to the (growing) list of countries I've visited. We ate a delicious Polish lunch, bought a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables because they are so inexpensive there, and then just walked around the beautiful city of Szcezcin.
I stood in the room where the 1945 Potsdam Conference happened!! A few Sundays ago my host family made a day trip to Potsdam, a town right next to Berlin which is very historically significant as it was where Stalin, Truman, and Chuchill met after World War 2, basically to decide what should happen next. The meeting took place in Cecilienhof Palace, the home of Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, which is now a museum. Having always been so so so interested in history, I was pretty excited to get to go to the museum and stand in a room that I had learned so much about. It really made me appreciate taking AP European History class last year - even though I sometimes really hated all of the work, it's pretty cool to now be able to see everything for real and make the connections (thanks Mrs. Mulcahy!!)
I took my first English tests in school!! (One for my grade ten class and one for my grade twelve class). And I think I definitely failed both. (Just kidding!) As crazy as this sounds, I was literally so excited to be writing in-class essays for the first time in months. The grade twelve test was actually more of an exam, considering that it was four hours long, but I was smiling the whole time despite the terrible cramp in my hand. Fingers crossed for when I get back my scores next week (because that would be really really really embarrassing if I didn't do well...)
I got to see the Berlin Festival of Lights! It's an annual two week festival where beautiful lights are projected onto different landmarks around Berlin, and it made for some pretty cool pictures...of the thousands I took, this was my favorite: