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Swimming season is now ultimately over. Last weekend was the State Meet in the Holland Aquatics Center. We got overall 4th and the Champions were from Saline. They are swimming all year round, so they are much faster. In every individual event, except for the 500free, Saline had the #1 ranked swimmer after the prelims. And they won 2 out of 4 relays. The gap between place 1 and 2 was only 4 pints, though, which is not a lot. Our divers did really well with 4th and 9th place and we had about 8 people in the top 16 combined. Tuesday we had our after season banquet. It was an awesome night. We had so much fun with videos featuring the seniors from something called jibjab. It was hilarious. Parks made really funny jokes about members including Courtis, who goes after the summer to Hameln, Germany for one year. He said I should tell not to dress too stereotypical and showed a picture of two men in leather pants. And the seniors made awards featuring funny things that happened during season. I finally got my Varsity Letter with all the patches to sew on the Varsity Jacket. I actually got the Jacket as a present from Debbie and Robin. It´s just incredible, that they did it and I´m so thankful for this present and the opportunity to participate in this program. Finally the spring has come to West Michigan. The sun is shining and we finally get rid of the snow. The temperatures rise and you can stay longer than 2 minutes outside without gloves. The first week of the third trimester was super easy. It was ACT and other standardised tests for the Sophomores and especially Juniors. We had tuesday and Friday off and a late start on wedenesday and thursday. It felt like a perfect week with too much sleep. It sounds impossible, but I could barely sleep at 11pm, because I slept so much over the days. My classes are great. I have a great government teacher and we are four exchange students in his fourth hour. He always says: „It´s like in the United Nations“. We are reading Shakespeare´s „twelth night“. The language and vocabulary is as bad as German Classics compared to standard German. First hour is still Aquatics for me. We do workouts, that could be a part of swim practice and I definately feel, that I didn´t train as much in the last three weeks. My second hour is Structual Engineering, in which we will build storage sheds and learn about the process of building residual homes. My fifth hour is Statistics. It is really fun to learn about the different things you can learn about data and whether a statistic is representative or not. Now, that swimming is over, I have a ton of free time and sometimes I´m bored, but I hang out with friends a lot, I watched Silver Linings Playbook and Beasts of the Southern Wild, which are both great movies, and do things with my family. This sunday we just had the time switch, so it pretty dark in the morning, but at night the sun goes down much later. I´m so excited for the end of this trimester, although it means I´m not a lot longer here then, but we get to go out of school earlier and I probably don´t have to take 2 out of 5 final exams. And the Graduation will be awesome. First we have Spring Break at the end of March and Prom on May 11th. Exciting stuff!

Last weekend we won the OK Red Conference Championship. All six schools are competing in a final meet and the winner of the most meets over the season gets the final award. We won the last meet with 426 poinst and 60 points lead to 2nd place. I also had something to be happy about. I improved my 100free time from 57.63 to 57.26 and broke my 25 with 24.84 in the 50free. In my 100back I dropped about 3 seconds from the last time, but I was still about 1 second off from my time I swam in Zeeland. It was probably the pool, because Zeeland has a much faster and better pool than Grand Haven, where our last meet was. The last week of the second trimester in school was really relaxing, bc I had more time and I was less tired without long practices. We had another snow day on wednesday and the final exams went very well. At the side of the streets is so much snow now, that I built a huge face out of a snowpile. It looks kind of creepy, when you drive by it at night, but I really like it. On Friday Fiddler on the Roof at the Civic theater started. Amanda is working in the Crew and Andrew is part of the Cast. The show was so awesome and got a great Review from the Grand Rapids Press. It is a really long show with 3 hours and one intermission, but with a lot of jokes and a ton of action. The Choreography and the dancers are just amazing! This saturday was so awesome too. I finally cooked the first German things over here. I had help from Andrew and Phyllis, who is Robyn´s mum. She was in Germany before with her deceased husband and has a spätzle press. We had onion tarte, Cordon bleu with messed up Spätzle, and for dessert Kaiserschmarrn. The dough for the Spätzle was unfortunately not of the right consistency, so they mostly clotted together or they fell apart. But the onion tarte was great and the Kaiserschmarrn was just awesome. Pictures of these great things are under a new link in the picasa album. It is: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

In just 2 days the swimming season is over. Right now we are in the final phase of taper, in which we train much less and just get ready for the final meet. I like it much better than regular season, because I don’t get soar muscles all the time and we get out of practice much earlier. Another thing of preparation is shaving. Girls love it and boys hate it. Before the Conference meet all swimmers have to shave their legs, arms and upper body. It helps one to feel the water better and so to swim better. I just did it. Right now it feels super weird and I´m sad, because several years of growing are gone now :/ . Anyway our last practice was super easy and we only swam about 1400yards. As well our second trimester is almost over. The final exams are next week thursday and friday. A little update on Basketball and other sports. State destroyed Michigan a few days ago with over 25 points lead. Unfortunately Spartans just lost by 4 points against number one Indiana. Hockey is still going and almost every night there is a interesting game going on. Unfortunately there are no new pictures in the album, but I hope, there will be some good ones from the Conference meet. The winter is still here with 8inches of snow and we just had an day off, because of icy roads. And there is another storm coming from the south, with snow and icy roads.

It has been quite a long time, since I wrote the last entry. Swimming apperently takes up a lot of time. The weather is still unstable and changes between 40 degrees and 15 and clear and snowing. Just the typical Michigan weather. Swimming is going great. Our last four meets weren´t always easy and we lost another one against Zeeland High. Parks was putting pressure on us yesterday, because we swam against Hudsonville. They are team number two in Conference and have some really good swimmers. Over all we won, but it was much tighter, than our usual results. Anyway, we have our last meet before the big Conference and we start tapering next week. Tapering is a short period of time before the last and big meet, in which we train less harder and get more rest. After this one can swim much faster. It´s a common technique to boost the results at the end of the season. Another big thing was our last home meet three weeks ago. It is called senior night, because all seniors on the team get honored. We got pizza, cake and a lot of candy after it. It was an awesome night! School is doing great too. No failed classes and no complains from my teachers. Last week I had an orientation from YFU. It was about our goals and how we can still change things and it was really interesting. At night we went to a Grand Rapids Griffins Hockey game. It was the same great atmosphere as in Hamburg about 2 years ago. There is now finally the NHL playing and College Basketball. A lot of TV time is occupied by sport. I love it! 🙂 There is still nothing big going on in politics and the news are unfortunately still only local crimes and the newest forecasts. I try to find new topics to talk about, but I´m kind of stuck. Suggestions are welcome 😉 . I added new pictures to the picasa Album and if one wants to see a team picture it is under the link: https://sites.google.com/a/rockfordschools.org/rockford-varsity-swimming-diving/home . The album link is https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

The first week of school went pretty good. It was not really easy to get back the routine of waking up at 5:40, but meeting friends again was great. We had two swimming meets this week at home. The first was a home meet with West Ottawa and we literally destroyed them. The final score was 69 for WO and 219 for us. This Saturday we had our invitational swimming. There were four other teams from west Michigan. It went great for us. We made first place and had a lead if almost 200 points to second place. A little update on my times. My fastest hundred is now a 0:58.15, in the 200 free is with 2:10 about 3 seconds faster than before break, and my 50 free time dropped to 0:25.58. After the long days with four hours of practice during break, the after school practices seem much shorter. Unfortunately here we don’t get snow again after new year. A bit more about recent sport events and games. After the end of College Football season, which ended with an awful defeat of Notre Dame in the Championship game from Alabama, now there is almost every day one or more Basketball games on tv. In high school is now basketball season, too. The Games are very exciting and Rockford is pretty good. We just defeated Forest Hills with about 20 points in lead. The only thing, that is recent and interesting too, is the weather. This is already the second season with a winter, which doesn´t really feel like a winter. We just had 50 degrees again and it rained. Almost like home. Finally I updated the picasa album. It’s under the the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

My birthday was awesome. We went to Craig’s Cruisers, which is a big hall with a lot of games, indoor carts and laser tag. It was so much fun and the all you can eat pasta and pizza buffet was great. It was an unforgettable day. The new year started great. We had a nice fondue party with friends and watched the ball dropping on Time Square. The second week of swim practices went really good. I tried the test set for the A- Team and made it finally. The last couple 100s were not really fun and I was dizzy for the next few hours, but it definitely worthed it. Our last three hour practice before next Monday the school starts again was really fun. We did something called „Iron Man“. It‘ s not a several hour long triathlon, but a summary of most of the events in a usual meet including diving. People with about the same speed are racing each other and the first four places out of eight get points. The one, who has the most points after all events, wins a trophy. Really fun! In politics everything got relatively calm after the big issue of the fiscal cliff, which was avoided by congress with a long bill. Unfortunately not much snow fell in the last few weeks. Usually Grand Rapids gets about 31 inches till start of January, but we got only 8 till now. The weather gets weirder every year. Pictures are still in progress, but almost ready to upload.

My birthday was awesome. We went to Craig’s Cruisers, which is a big hall with a lot of games, indoor carts and laser tag. It was so much fun and the all you can eat pasta and pizza buffet was great. It was an unforgettable day. The new year started great. We had a nice fondue party with friends and watched the ball dropping on Time Square. The second week of swim practices went really good. I tried the test set for the A- Team and made it finally. The last couple 100s were not really fun and I was dizzy for the next few hours, but it definitely worthed it. Our last three hour practice before next Monday the school starts again was really fun. We did something called „Iron Man“. It‘ s not a several hour long triathlon, but a summary of most of the events in a usual meet including diving. People with about the same speed are racing each other and the first four places out of eight get points. The one, who has the most points after all events, wins a trophy. Really fun! In politics everything got relatively calm after the big issue of the fiscal cliff, which was avoided by congress with a long bill. Unfortunately not much snow fell in the last few weeks. Usually Grand Rapids gets about 31 inches till start of January, but we got only 8 till now. The weather gets weirder every year. Pictures are still in progress, but almost ready to upload.

My Christmas was a very busy and definately unforgetable time. We had family reunions twice with at least 25 people. And there were handing outs of christmas gifts 3 times and one is still to come at my birthday tomorrow. We unfortunately didn´t have a white Christmas, but a pretty decent winter storm with a lot of snow and Blizzards in some parts of Michigan started on the dot afternoon of 26th. We saw at least five cars off the free way, because of skidding, this day. One of the problems is that almost nobody changes his tires to winter tires. Either it doesn´t worth it or someone doesn´t care about it. My activities besides unwrapping presents and eating cookies were very dominated by hellweek practices from the swimming season. Start at 8.30 and ending 4 hours later with a lot exhaustion every day is not the ideal holiday, one can imagine, but you see your friends and you get in shape for the following two months of practices and meets. Here in the public mind is the terrible shooting in New Town, Connecticut, the following debate about gun control and the rapidly approaching fiscal cliff. The news about the fiscal cliff are really confusing and although a lot of people are talking about it, I couldn´t figure it out completely, yet. Right now it is Bowl weeks in the football season, with almost one or two bowl games every day. There are about 30 different Bowls and they have weird names such as Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl or Rose Bowl. The most interesting Bowl game is the College Football Association Championship game with undefeated number one Notre Dame and number two Alabama. A lot of great football and a hard competition are expected . Tomorrow I´m gonna enjoy my birthday with family and friends, but first the obligatory Saturday practice. I wish everybody a Happy New Year and some pictures will be hopefully uploaded in the next week.

In this week I experienced so much new and awesome things. We had our first two swim meets and I had a school trip to Chicago. Our first meet of the season was against Jenison High School. It was like my first competition with the DLRG. I was so nervous and felt so weak before my first race. But after the start, when I thought of nothing, just than listen to the voice of the starter, everything got better. The last 25 were very strange, because I could almost feel the speed the lactic acid built up in my muscles. Sounds like a really strange thing, but I found it very fascinating. My times were 1:02 in the 100 free and a :27.25 in the 50 free. Faster than in the practices, but still not really fast. Finally we won the meet, although it was tighter, than Parks expected. Thursday we had a meet at Holland High School. They are a smaller High School, but are really fast. Parks was really excited, though, because we had weight room training on Monday and in consequence our muscles were sore and we couldn´t swim all out on Tuesday, but Thursday it was almost gone. It was supposed to be very tight and in the end we lost, but it was a great meet. I improved and had a 1:00.66 in my 100 free and a 0:58.77 after a relay start, which are supposed to be faster, but that´s still a significant difference. My 50 free were with a :26.09 better and I hope to improve a couple more seconds, which is not easy, but doable. Saturday we had the West Michigan Relays, which is a big meet with a lot of schools from West Michigan. I didn´t swim, because only the people from the A-Team got the opportunity, but I just cheered for us. We got first place in the overall ranking and had a few first places in races and broke at least one time record. Friday was a awesome and unforgetable day. I went with German learning students and other German exchange students from our school to Chicago. We started at 7am and came very tired back at 10:30pm. We visited the German Christkindl Market, in Downtown Chicago, which is surprisingly much German, and the Goethe Institute on Michigan Avenue, one of Chicago´s main streets. Of course we had plenty time to do christmas shopping and take lots of pictures. It was cold and really windy, but so clear, that the skyline picutres just look incredible. Before I went to the Big Meet we got our Christmas tree at a local tree farm. We cut it ourselves and went with the Hubbard´s. Finally I could add some pictures from my trip and the tree hunt. The link is: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

After the first week of school I am glad to have weekend. Practices are hard. Much harder, than I thought they would be. And one can guess now, what happened 😉 . I finally made the team together with another 34 swimmers and 5 divers. Swimming is very time, that I have not much time for anything except homework after practice, and powerconsuming, that I fall asleep on the couch at night, when I watch tv. My new courses of the trimester are CAD, which is a drafting program for engineers, Psychology, which is one of the most interesting classes I ever had in school and Introduction to Calculus. Intro to Calc seemed hard the first days, but all in all it is not much harder than the german math classes. I still have Aquatics for Fitness, which is the replacement for morning practice. It´s much better to do this in first hour, instead of starting at 6:15am and be done at 7:15. As well I have American Studies B. Mr. Dekuiper is still awesome and now he has three exchange students to make fun of. One from Mexico, one from France and me. It is hilarious. Our swimming practices are twice a day on weekdays and once Saturday. All together it is like a 17 hour job. We just don´t get paid 😉 . The Scheduloe with practices and meets is tight. We have almost the whole christmas break practice and even on my birthday is practice from 8:30 am to 10:30. The weather is getting colder and we are usually now at 31°F/-1°C in the morning.