lonq times.

I'm sorry you haven't heart anything 'bout me the last couple weeks...
So here a short resume..

About one week after the last entry I was at cassies house for the night.. we had ice cream root beer :D (without alcohol!) & went to church the next day.. to sunday school :)
If i didn't tell you yet.. Church is really fun here ;) we always play games before & then some guy named joey talks about god, again a game & then home.. I am happy i went there cause I met a lot of people there :)
For example Amber & Andrea that were both distance runners with me in the track team ;)
they're amazing and I had such a good time with them messing around at the track meets or eating at the Chinese Restaurant..





Between that time & easter there wasn't too much going on.. Well.. on Friday we went to Nashua. That's the place where my host mum's parents live.. They are so nice =) I feel like I won my 3rd grandma & grandpa ;) Rose made Spagetti Pizza (der daugthers favorite) & I had strawberries for desert yum! :D Verna also took me to the little brown church. She told me the church's history is based on a very famous song but I've never heard of it before...



Saturday we basicly stayed home but on Sunday we went to Johns parents :) They were also very nice. In comparison to friday there were many more people. A lot of kids that went to search easter eggs. John's parents live on a farm ;) they took us to see the cows and also some of their babies ;) Ick! They sucked at our thumbs.. I didn't like it but Arien did ;/




And this day I found my favorite: Puppy Chow.. [all you need is:]

1/2 c. peanut butter
1/2 c. butter
1 c. chocolate chips ... melt those all together & mix it with 8 c. cereal
and 2 c. of powdered sugar in a bag [amazing!]

The next bigger event was actually prom.. Prom is a dance for Juniors and Seniors (11. & 12.) graders in High School. Already monts befor it actually is there is a prom committee established by juniors that organize the prom & all the girls are in a hurry to find the perfect puffy dress...
Around 2 weeks before the event girls start to go tanning so that they have a unnatural brown skin color for the dance. It's crazy cause some of them really looked orange when they went to the tanning bed or to get sprayed every day :D A ritual for prom is it to get a nice ride like a limosine or an oldtimer to go to school that night girls are also supposed to wear flowers around their wrisk ;) I think prom is way (!) too big.. girls spend hundreds of dollars just for cosmetics, nails and the dress of coure (& i hate long dresses :D)
Well.. at that day we arrived in front of the school & went in a big march to the cafeteria. We were celebrated as celebrities & all the people took pictures until 7 pm when the dinner was served... Umm.. after dinner we had the dances =) everyone took off their shoes and we started dancin in the cafeteria - it was cool ;D after that we went home to change really quickly.. when we came back to school we had again an after prom buffett & seniors as well as juniors got gifts.
That's basically it ;) the prom.. Lots of people went to another place for an after after prom party but I was so tired & sleepy so that I was happy I could get home really soon :)

Some weeks after prom we organized a "cook over" at andrea's house :) We decided all of the 5 gitls that were invited should bring typical food from their country ;)

Amber MEXICAN rice
Andrea PUERTORICAN flour dough that was filled with meat
Isabelle "GERMAN" chocolate mousse
Li CHINESE
Noriko JAPANESE noodles with shrimp



it was really good ;) we enjoyed cooking, watching movies until we left the other day in the morning ;) & it was really fun girls!

The other day we went to the festival of nations with the spanish class :) It was really fun.. All different nations of the world were represented in the food market and a big bazar.. I talked to a German lady & I just noticed my German is getting worse ;) Jessica & me also got a Henna tatoo on our feet.. unfortunately it turned out brown instead of black but it disappeared after 5 days.. The festival was in St. Paul MN, close to the Mall of America. The way was long cause we went with the school bus but it was okay though ;)
Basically all we did was messing around that day.. we took a lot of funny pictures [see here:]

Let's go crazy :D

Hello again,

well.. there's not too much to tell you ;)

Last Saturday we've been to a Wedding. The church was.. normal, it looked like our catholic churches. Wll the Wedding party was pretty. The girls wore all red dresses except the bride, of course and the men wore black tuxes with red shirts..
In comparison to a german wedding it didn't take us very long, but before and after the ceremony all the people too pictures. Actually, that took us 3 (!) hours...

They celebrated their wedding in a hall near the church in Fort Dodge. Instead of rice, we blew soap bubbles ?!.. well that's something different.

I don't know.. I think the American don't take a wedding fore very special..

The cake was a bit boring and just tasted sweet.. The bride changed her shoes against tennis shoes, as soon as she arrived in the hall and for the meal there were burger with sausage and chips, coffee and a punch made of Mountain Dew..

So.. it was not really special, and verna told me that's the way american weddings were...

On tuesday I've been to a Track & Field meet with my team :) The day before we all baught a lot of candy and food for the next day.. It was fun ;D I didn't have to run but the girls that had to were really.. exhausted [they said "dead"] Because Laken had to throw till 2 p.m. we left earlier from UNI where the gym was. In comparison to our last meet it was really big. Next day theytoldme the girls got home at 10.30 p.m. although the meet started at 11 a.m. It took them really a long time. I think our team won the hurtles with jamie and MacKenzie ;)

Meghan, Cassie, Arianna & Arielle

On thursday i've been to the chinese restaurant with Noriko, Andrea and Amber. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures :/ oh well.. it was really fun. A MUST DO AGAIN..!

Friday morning we went to the Ellsworth College.. We visited it and they showed us the art room.. it was nice and there were a lot of.. Hopper but nothink for me, i couldn;t study fashion design there o.o neeext. I hope I can visit Parsons New College for Art & Design in NY when we get there..

In the evening Jessica & Cat picked me up and took me to Chrystin's house. Jenna was already there and we watched twilight together.. It was fun but we really did not concentrate on the movie :D we made pictures and they made me log up in gesichterparty.de to see if the german boys were hot .. oh my good they almost cried :D Funny !

Around 9 p.m. we sang "Happy Birthday" for cat and made a cake ;)

[her birthday is on tuesday...] she was so happy ;)

We got home at 10 p.m. and the evening was really fun, another think we have to do again..!

This weekend won't be so exciting, i belive..

we'll see..

Bye Bye ♥ Isa

News from.. Isabella.

Hey u... ;)

I don't know exactly why but everybody keeps on calling me Isabella.. [except my Hostfamily..] Coach Harker [T&F] started and now.. yea. I can tell 'em as often as I want to but their memory isn't the best :D

Well.. what's new.. I didn't have too much time to come online or to upload my Blog because I had to write my Learning Log's, my Literary Response, my 20ies ABC-book [oh my god!] and my take-home exam. Lots of stuff.. And as smart as I am, I just started in the really last days to work on the stuff so i spent my whole time on doin that.

Last Saturday we've been to the Mall of America. I was really excited to go there because everybody said it's the biggest Mall ever, and it's true. It's huge. Maybe a bit too huge. After 3-4 hours [We left at 6.45 am & picked up kelsey, Arien's friend] we finally arrived there. I planned on spending my whole money on that day.. Unfortunately that wasn't what happened. Although we basically went there to get me a Prom dress, i just tried 2 long, really ugly pink dresses they liked [urgh!] I'm glad we didn't take pictures xD. First I was really mad at John because i didn't want to let me go by myself "There are gangs and gangsters that push you into the bathroom and stabb u" omq.. they're so overcontrolling :D

Finally I counld go by myself. But this mall is so huge. I just got to see the one part and all i baught was a scarf and a bangle. Well.. we went there with eight persons: Verna, John, Sierra, Seth, Laken, Arien, kelsey & me. So I should have been expecting we won't shop that much.. But whatever. We spent more time on watching the girls & Seth on rollercoaster.. some pictures later. This part promised to be very boring, i thought. But in fact it was really funny to laugh at all them because Sierra and Kelsey were almost crying xD [Some pictures later] I decided not to go on the Roller coaster because I had a huge portion of Ice-cream for lunch :D Stone Cold is the best Ice-cream parlor ever! I told the server to make the smallest one they had.. but yea.. americans :D

It's name stone cold because you can choose between about 15 different kind of Ice cream like mocha, chocolate, vanilla, oatmeal cake ice cream, ... they put it on a cold stone and you can decide what you want to have in it like reeses peanut butter cups, kitkat, 100 different kinds of nuts, apple pie filling, M&M &&&.. I took brownies, cookiedough & pecans with mocha ice-cream in a cone covered with chocolate and almonds. Oh my god it was so good!

I will miss it as soon as i'm home :D

On the way back we stopped in a smaller Mall with a Nike-outlet. I bought some new stuff & it was really cheap! Some new purple sports shorts, new tennis shoes for track, a hoodie & sports socks for $ 60.. :) Before we came home we stopped at Cancun, a mexican restaurant. Amazing! The Nachos with Cheese [serving for children] were amazing and so simple.. Recipe to memorize for home!

Kelsey stayed here for the whole sunday and monday too.

About the birthdays here.. I don't know nothing special. You say "Happy Birthday" and that's it. The American celebrate other festivities more than that..

Seth and Laken behind the wall :D

Kelsey and Laken ;)

... and finally Sierra =)


I'm so glad i decided to go out for Track (: I got to know a lot of girls by doing that. For example Amber & Andrea with who i'm gonna run distance or Cassie and Arielle.
On Wednesday Amber asked me to go to church with her. it's like the class for the confirmation in Germany but much more fun. If the "teacher" who was a 25-year old reds the bible, then in our language, we're playin some games and I won twice :) It was so cool & they're all really really nice ;) I feel famous here :D everyone knows my name unless i haven't seen him or her yet. Ambers father, her sister and nieces brought me back home again & asked me so much about Germany. It's really funny because everyone wants to know how it is to live in Europe, to see the hot guys in England, to relax in the sun of Italy or to go shopping and climb on the Eiffel Tower in paris :) They're all very curious!


On Thursday Amber, Andrea, Casse and me have been to Pizza ranch to the Fundraiser Buffet.. 10 % of the profit of this evening went to our school. It was so much fun being there with them and we have to do it again!

Today's Saturday.. we'll probably go to Fort Dodge later & go shopping :) Maybe i'll get my prom dress there.. and underarmer for Track.

Well.. that's all so far..
See u,
I promise to upload sooner than last time ;)

<3

Isa

What's happened?

Hello again :)
just a few sentences what has happened till now..

So last week on 14th was St. Valentines Day. In school they celebrated it already on freiday.

The week before you could buy gifts like chocolate and crush soda or write messages down that were delivered on friday :)
i got 2 crust soda.. (nevertheless.. i hate pop) one from Laken and the other can.. i don't know :D
The whole school was decored with pink and red hearts, and they had valentine's cake in the cafeteria. On saturday that was actually the real St. Valentines Day, Alex & Seth came over to our house.. I go earrings and a bracelet from verna & john & Petit fours from Alex :D
Thery were not as good as the ones from Schubert but not bad ;)

Laken and Seth are really crazy.. they spent like 100 $ just for gifts that day.

She got him a chair for the Xbox with sound stuff & so on & Seth got her pralines, a heart as a pillow, a bracelet and a ring &&& CRAZY :D
at 5.30 pm we went out to a mexican restaurant in town (alex is a mexican)

Yum :) it was really good.. Later we went to the movie theater to see the cop of the mall or something like this.. the movie was really funny but the salty buttery popcorn is disgusting^^

The eating culture here is ... special..

So.. they told me they gonna prepare an apple salad and I thought "cool, a salad with apples :)"

Now i gonna tell you what an apple salad is.. 2 whole cans of heavy whipped cream, a whole package of marshmallows and 5 snickers bars.. oh yea.. and at least 2 or 3 small apples.. YAK! that's so disguisting.. i picked all the apples out of my serving and threw the rest in the container :D here are some pics from Sierra :D

What else.. oh yea on monday the Track and Field practice started.. We always do a warm up, stretching, sprinting, a short jogg and that stuff and then we go to the weightroom.

Wednesday i really thought i'd have to die :D I was so sore and my muscels hurt so much.. I could neither walk nor stand or sit... but now i'm used to the practice & the workouts & it's really easy.

So.. i gonna draw anything for Advanced Drawing & painting..

See u later ;)

♥ Isa

Lots of stuff

Hello again ;)

I haven't written for a long time.. Sorry. So here is the newest update.
I just finished with the Autobiography & i'm so happy about.. It was like 11 pages with double space and I got an A.. For the test in government and in maths i got an A, too.
Yea.. So today the Track practise started.. It's pretty.. cool :D lots of stuff to do because i have to lift weight everyday. Now, my legs feel like pudding & i'm a way out of shape :D

I don't have that much time to write because I have to finish my assignments for art tonight..
Hope we'll go to the Mall of America to get my prom dress soon.

.. And my "homecoming" date is around the 9th-11th of june.. But we'll probably do a trip around the states so i'll arrive later at home..


Have to go now, hopefully i can upload my pictures tomorrow :)

See u soon,
Isa ♥

lonq. time

So.. next time i'll just give u a short reviw what happend..

I had to do something for school so i ain't find time to update the Blog.

School here is very easy.. I'm in spanish 3 III because I had already 2 classes before in germany.
it's so easy because they're working at the present. At home we've already done all the past and future tenses :D So the Spanish test on monday was really easy.
There's just one thing: Instead of the Espanol Castellano (that's what the people in Spain are speaking) they use the latin american Spanish here..
It's a bit different because they pronounce differently and the use of usted and ustedes is more common than the use of nosotros (Spanish speakers know what i mean :D)
But that's not that hard..

Like I said I took the hardest Math class: PreCalculus.. I think we're a bit ahead of the german stuff.
Yesterday we got the first grade resume about the first two week in Maths.
I got an A (:

Another thing that's different is that the teachers mark every Homework, Quiz (like a control of homework in class) or test..
We wrote such a test yesterday and it's really funny.. Because we could decide how to do it..

1st option: Take-home-test.. what means we could take the test home over the weekend and finish it till monday..
2nd option: reschedule the test on monday
3rd option: Team-test

and we did the team test.. So be built a circle in class and could work together..
it was really funny because we shouted the answers through the class and at least we had all the same :D


At least i decided to sign up for Track and Field because i really want to do a sport.
Verna said it will be very hard because they practise to 7 times a week in the morning at 6 before school or after school.. great ;D
If it was really like she said i wouldn't arrive home like a ball because of all the Fastfood..

Oh and i have a Cell phone now :D
Verna took me on their reiceipt because they had to sign a contract for 5 phones.
So i have to pay the phone calls from my phone but i can at least write as much as i want..
The first day i texted over 70 messages ^^

Anyway was all i'd like to tell you..


xoxo
Hugs and kisses,

Isa ♥

Busy Busy Busy

1st.. Excuse me but i won't write so much next time because i'm very busy at the moment. School began and i have to do a lot of stuff.

On Sunday we went over to Kansas city to a Cousin of the Dirksens, Patience, to celebrate her 3rd Birthday. On the way to the party we bought a present (some clothes and a painting book) - yep, the American are very spontanious. When we came there, a huge faily was already waiting for us. So they were all very nice and welcomed me in their family ;) Patience's father is the nephew of Verna and her mother is a Hispanic (..I would call her skin color cappuchino). The little, cute girl is really smart.. she knows already speaking english and spanish and some other things.. The birthday was pretty nice, we ate (however) hotdogs or hamburger + chips and afterwards a bisquitcake with a nasty sugar frosting (urgh!) but that's the american way :D
She sang a song and we went home again..

As soon as we arived home we left again to go to the Walmart in Fort Dudge. There we bought some stuff for my Senior Life project and i got KFC chickenwngs for the first time (spicy!!!) ;)

Monday should be my first schoolday. But wron. This day there was still the 1st semester going on to finish the classtests. So my whole 8-hour schoolday was filled out with Study Halls.. Maybe you could think that would be funny but after 4 hours sitting in the Library it gets really boring. I was lucky to meet Richard, Joey, Cara and so on. First Richard showed me the rest of the school and the teachers I hadn't seen yet. And he helped me to upload my lunchconto. In my school we can have breakfast and lunch every day. You choose your meal out between a lot possibilities then you pay with you student number :) At the moment I take breakfast and lunch there, the offer changes every day. In the morning p.e. an egg sandwich and donuts or cereals and for lunch, like today "Goulash" (no goulash - it was Maccaroni Bolognese, these Americans^^) or Cheese Pizza, and always a salad bar / fruit and pudding for desert. The offer changes every day.. After that, Joey took me to the school garage where they're pimping an old VW bus and som others... Till the end of the schoolday we were puzzeling the confusing Chinese Wall :D

In the evening I went with John and the Basketball Varsity Boys and Girls (in a yellow schoolbus) to Dows. They had 2 BBgames there. During the games there were a lot of girls and boys that were talking to me.. that's really great! You arrive anywhere and everybody knows you already.. The Americans are so open-minded and when i'm honest, much nicer than ther Germans!
Long day but a bunch of new friends!

Now.. my first schoolday was on Tuesday. It was a stressy day because I couldn't find all the classes and 3 minutes between each class are really short if you have to leave the room, open your locker with the password and go again to the next class. The american schoollife is first much easier and in the second place really funny! And if you belive me or not.. the teachers are really nice & cool (!) I try to tell you something about the classes and the teacher and maybe I'm allowed to take some fotos ;)

In the first class there's Mrs. Funell, she's my spanish teacher. Spanish is really easy here.. I'm in the 3rd course and they're still doing the Present. I had to choose a name.. because Isabella was already taken I took Ester ;) Okay there's one thing that's really stupid, she wants us to stand up if we give an answer :S

In the second I have P.E. (sports) or Senior English.. On this day I had P.E. we were just sitting around and I played cards with some boys of my class. The programm of this semster will mainly be Badminton and formal dance (yeah!) :D that's easy for me..!

In the third I have PreCalculus.. at the moment they're doing the stuff germans do at the end of the 10th grade. But it's not difficult to understand.

In the fourth class I have Advanced Drawing and Painting, thats an art class.. The teacher is pretty cool. His name is Jack and I think he would kill us if we call him with his last Name :D He looks like a cowboy and his belt supports this statement ("cowboy clown").

After this I have lunch time and study hall.. That means free time or time to work on my homework..

In the sixth perion I have U.S. History II. This teacher is really cool, as well. He does always jokes and if someone gives a right answer, he earns a M&M or more of them ;) Today he explained the break out of the first World War with M&M's ("If Julie wants an M&M, and Caleb, too they try to enforce their army with Support of other students, they build alliances and more and more students get into the war to support each other and to get the M&M's"..) crazy!

I could tell you a lot about him.. he's the Basketballcoach for the JV, too.

My seventh class is FCS, this class is really funny. You cook and sew, i think i don't have to explain so much. Yesterday we defined a Chef's knife and a pairing knife and she showed us some kitchenutensils.. ;D

Introduction to Biotech is in the 8th. Not really exiting, but I had to take a Science class...

It's a College class (normally, exchange students mustn't take part at this course.. now we're three!)

The last class was Government. The teacher is nice.. and he's just showing Powerpoint presentations. Yesterday there was the inauguration of Obama, so everywhere in the school where TV's to watch it. Our Government teacher Mr. Olsen was almost crying.. he said it has been such an important day for the history that a black man.. bla bla bla..

After school there was a meeting of the next Track & Field athletes. We met with a lot of people and i think it'll be funny! We'll get new tricots from school. Track and Field is that what we call "Leichtathletik" with sprints and so on.

In the evening Tam and Dale took me and Laken to the Wrestlingturnament of Seth (Yeah a lot of names!) We were a bit late and Laken reaaally upset and exited but our School won against Gaels (they lokked really gay with their pinkshirts and shoes) and we drove home late in the evening, i guess 9.30 pm.

Today's Wednesday .. school was quite unexiting because we had early out, that means schools out at 1.30 pm. I had Senior English this day. Its a complete diffrent thing as German in our schools. In this class I got a folder with numerous of colored pages. I have to fill them out and write some essays. P.e. I have to read 2 books and write up from 5 pages over them, we have to write an autobiography over 7 pages and an essay over a theme we choose.. I think, it has to have 5 pages to (great with my tiny letters!) If you want to get graduated, as I do, you have to do that stuff and you have to do a Life Project. That should be a charitative project. The mist of the students do someting with children, like Cara and Erin. They offered a golf camp. Jesse teached some children in Religious Education. I don't want to to something with kids because it need at least so much organization and i'm afraid of converting with them ;) ^^ So i'll figuerd out to sew a quilt. It's done out of 12 blocks that insist of fabric painted pictures of the students who participate in sport disciplines for the Clarion-Goldfield Highschool. I'll do it in the colors of the school and sell it to anyone. The money I'll earn for the quilt is for Krysilis. Thats my Life Project.

I hope I'll find time to begin soon, the material is already there.

The bad thing is that i have to do all the stuff, the other seniors did in the first semester, too.

Means: Have to do the work twice ^^
So yea, i'll graduate, i'll do my american, like ABI, with 15 ^^

And i'm allowed to wear such a nice cappy and a sac out of linen .. Great! :D
They're named "caps and gowns" (picture)

This afternoon I did nothing.. exept homework and picking out senior pictures. I couldn't decide and they're really expencive, too :/ I hope my parents will pay something :D
But there a couple of nice shots. Here are the prooves.

I'll buy some walltes that are little picture (2x size of picture fore the passport)

and in High School it's common to hand them out, to collect some pics from other students and to put them into the yearbook ;)

That was all.. See u ♥ Isa