The Royal Gorge

The Royal Gorge was graced by my presence a few days ago. The mini-vacation was planned on the spur of the moment, as most of the activities of my summer have been compiled of. Since being accepted into the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme, but parents and I have set out to conquer more of the magnificent beauty that Colorado has to offer. It would be a tragedy if I were to go to Germany as an ambassador of Colorado, when I have yet to see many of the things it has to offer.

This was not my first trip to the Royal Gorge; I went about seven or eight years ago. The attractions that lie around this monumental bridge are ones that you cannot see every year, for it would be a bit of a waste of money. But since my memory had been fading of the instances that happened almost a decade ago, we set off to renew our view of the manmade wonder.

Most of my excitement revolved around my hopes that I would have a summer romance (even though there was barely enough time to meet anyone). My hopes dwindled, of course, when I realized that I was venturing to the resort totally out of season. Not only had most of the schools in Colorado already commenced, but it was in the middle of the week. So after my realization I wasn’t sure what I would do with myself for the three days.

I am a bit embarrassed to say that one of the highlights was the huge jump pillow that was in the resort I was staying at. This pillow resembled a trampoline but was much greater in size. I am sure that it was only intended for young children, but I made a point to spend most of my time on the pillow. I thought nothing of it at the time for the resort was practically deserted. I took this time to explore my ninja moves mid-air, and added some sound effects for dramatization. It was only after I retired from my practice that I realized that I was not alone. Not only were there people in close enough proximity to hear me, but they were boys around my age! Not surprisingly, I dashed back to my cabin and never resurfaced at the pillow.

My pre-exchange diet faltered while on vacation, as I had expected. What was the surprise was how far of the tracks it would stumble. I gouged myself on theme park delicacies such as Funnel Cake and Ice Cream. Just thinking about it makes me feel as if I gained ten pounds! I must say though, it was totally worth it. I am rather glad that Funnel Cakes are only sold at select places, and only during the summer, for if it was a different fate I would be enormous.

Even though I try to cover-up my quintessentially boy crazy mind, it shows through more than I would like. At this moment I would like to say that I was in the presence of some be (dare I say it?) hot guys. It had to come at the most awkward time, of course, because that is just the luck of Shandre. During the latter part of the day I was quite fatigued and it was obvious that I was extremely hot (temperature wise – even though we know both definitions are applicable to me!)  I was shying away from the massive crowds of giddy tourists in a feeble attempt to avoid utter embarrassment. This plan was a total failure as I was forced into propinquity with two attractive people while on the incline coaster. It is quite difficult to enjoy the beauty of the gorge, when the beauty of the men was just slapping me in the face!

It wasn’t until the late evening of the last night that we decided to take our leave from The Royal Gorge. The car ride home was off – probably because I am not used to driving extensive distances in the late evening. I quite enjoyed the trip (more than I had expected with the desertedness of the resort) and I liked spending with my parents before my departure (18 days!!).

To a Genius

Three weeks from today I will be entering the void of exchange students. Not that I am using void in a negative fashion, because that would be beyond preposterous! Not much excitement has occurred over the last couple of weeks, and it troubles me that I have no new data to inscribe on the face of the World Wide Web. It is as if I am frightened that if I neglect to explore my writing expertise, all that I have so far conquered will be annulled. I cannot yet say that this fear is unreasonable, because at the moment it seems quite plausible to me.

Tonight I would like to pay gratitude to the genius that has inspired my continuing of my passion. Sir William Shakespeare. I was once again reminded of his brilliance while investigating a few more documentaries and such. He was truly a man that knew how to plaster words together to make men weep, or cry tears of joy. I can only hope that one day his spirit will have some influence on me so that I may create such beauties.

The purpose of this post was not praise Shakespeare, nor to seemingly boast my own writing skill. In fact, I wished to share all my preparations that have taken place to far into my journey. As stated in my previous announcement, there isn’t much to do now that all my Rotary engagements are finished. This seems to have been and accurate assumption, because I have yet to do anything great in regards to my trip abroad. The closest thing that has happened was my preliminary packing, but I have already shared that with everyone. Now that I think back onto the purpose of this post, I did not have an idea going into this. Maybe it’s best that I just move on and commence with the rest of my summer – that has mostly consisted of watching Doctor Who or Big Brother (I am greatly ashamed to say that those are my guilty pleasures).

I feel that and epiphany has just come my way, and I think that I am going to pursue it. But its matters are of no relation to the one I am currently noting, thus I will be dedicating a whole post towards it (if it ever materializes to the standard of which I would not be ashamed to share it with my loyal companions). As it appears, I don’t like to deviate to far from the main focus of my postings, which may result in multiple per day. I infer that this will occur often in Germany for I will have so much to relay to those still in the United States. I sense that a great deal of my excitement for Germany directly correlates with the hordes of ideas that will be flowing through my mind that I can scribble down and quench my desires for writing.

And on that note:  Au Revoir!

A Traveler's Choice

It pains me to say that I have no Rotary engagements until I leave for Germany, nor do am I awaiting any further information about my exchange. For the past week or so I was a ship being propelled forward by the strong forces of a current, but now I sit in a windless sea, unable to move forward. Thus there will be a lack of posting for the next month or so. But today I finally came to the realization that I will have to fit a year of my life into two suitcases and a carry-on.  It’s quite a daunting task, but with my knowledge and perseverance (in actuality my mother’s) I am confident that I will be able to do so without my worry.

The Du Toit family went on an impulse shopping spree today to buy me some new luggage. It wasn’t an easy task to find the correct combination of style and practicality, but after an hour of scanning the same luggage we finally completed our task. I am happy with my choice in luggage for it encompasses a perfect balance of femininity and professionalism.

There are so many things to take into consideration when packing for exchange – and most of my ideas stem from the internet. I think that I have a bad case of searching things on the internet that end up making me more stressed out. Thus my solution is to turn off my internet until I go to Germany (that was a funny joke, wasn’t it?) I am tempted just to follow my own instincts when packing, and if I make a mistake then at least I know that it was my mistake.

Rotary Presentation

If you had asked me what I would have said two days ago: Am I ready to embarrass myself in two days? No. But luckily I have two days to prepare for such an embarrassment.

Typical Shandre, always overreacting! Things always work out better than I expect them too. This can be both good and bad though I guess. If I expect things to go badly then everything will seem to be great and fabulous, but this in itself causes me much stress. I think I am just a naturally stressed out person. I stress about the little things and the big things and all things in between. And what happens when I stress? I get sick and then stress more because I am too sick to do the things that I need to be doing. So my new life purpose is escaping this continuous paradox I am trapped in.

It seems that I have forgotten to mention that which was the cause of my stress! Mr. DiLorenzo – the Rotarian that had first inspired me to become an exchange student – had asked me to present to the Highlands Ranch Rotary Club about my exchange. It seemed simple enough, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. At first I thought his request meant that the other members of the club wanted to know a bit more about Regensburg, but in fact he wanted me to talk about my experience thus far. It really wasn’t a daunting task, but the thought of talking in front of people was intimidating.

The meeting was conducted at Lone Tree Country Club. I was dressed so prim and proper that I practically felt like a different person. I will now take this time to thank my mom for reminding me that I can’t wear jeans to every engagement I have!

Once we arrived, we sat down to a wonderful lunch. Because I am sure you want to know exactly what I ate, I shall oblige. I devoured the macaroni and cheese, bread, and cookies that I piled onto my plate. Thinking back on it now, I am quite glad that I ate before the presentation because it calmed my nerves a bit. Good thing my lunch didn’t decide to revisit me during my speech!

While lunch was in its closing stages, the president of the club initiated the announcements. I felt a bit out of place during all of this because all the topics were foreign to me. There was an awfully nice lady that stood up to talk about the cause she was advocating, and it struck a chord with me. She was lobbying for kids that were so negatively affected by the economic recession that they are unable to acquire the bare necessities that they need to succeed in the school year. What made her petition so strong and moving was that she extrapolated the future benefits of the project. If children are unable to succeed in the upcoming year, then the next year they will have a lesser chance of accomplishing. This snowball effect will eventually lead to more teenagers dropping out of high school, which is a fate that I wish to prevent. Unfortunately I was unprepared for donating money, so I neglected to bring with my wallet. It was to my dismay that I couldn’t help out a bit.

Once the announcements had concluded, it was time for me to get up in front of at least twenty people and tell them about my exchange. By now I had already met most of the people in the room so my nerves were at ease (well as relaxed as they could have been in that situation). But I had to embarrass myself just a bit (because that is just something I always seem to get right). I didn’t have a clue how to set up the projector to display my PowerPoint, but luckily there was a technical man in the vicinity that was able to come to my rescue! Just another prime example of how splendid the members of Rotary truly are!  Once I had gotten a few words into my speech, it felt as if I were talking to some of my good friends.

I opened my PowerPoint with “About Me”. This was by far the most exciting part of the presentation because I am just an exciting and interesting person! (Maybe my mum was right when she said I needed to show a bit more humility :D) I then went on to explain why I wanted to be an exchange student (maybe a future blog?) and what I had gone through so far. And then there was some blah about challenges and finally some things about Regensburg, my host family, and my school. I thought about typing out my whole presentation for you to read, but then I realized it would be a bazillion (yes that is a word) pages, and it would take me forever!

When all was said and done the kind hearted members of Rotary gave me a pin and a pen, and there were many handshakes and smiles. But I have saved the best for last.

Each week the Highlands Ranch Rotary holds a raffle in which the winner receives the sum of money collected from those that bought a ticket. It was my duty as the guest speaker to draw the winning ticket, and with my psychic awesomeness I pulled the same member that had won last week. He thought it would only be fair to give me the money. But what did I do with the money? I gave it to the lady who had inspired me so by her oration of the kids in need. It really makes me feel good to help people!

It took all my will power not to construct this paragraph, but the scientist in my ignored my pleas, and so here I am… writing this paragraph. I once read a journal of Richard Dawkins called The Selfish Gene. He proposed the idea that there is no selfless act in human nature. No one does something without getting something in return. I think that this may be a very viable statement. If one does something with no tangible reward, they still feel an emotional reward. The reward is a sense of good doing and accomplishment. This is not to say that doing things for other people without material reward has less meaning or importance, but it brings a new definition to the word: selfless.

So the moral of the story is that I shouldn’t worry about things as silly as a presentation. And more importantly I shouldn’t stress things that are out of my control. But what are the chances that I am going to take my advice?

We are now boarding...

September 9, 2011. The day my life will change forever. You guessed it! I finally booked my tickets for my flight to Germany a few days ago. It feels like this experience if finally getting underway. The ambiance in my house is a bit tense at the moment for my parents now have this date looming over their heads. If you ask them they will tell you that they are so excited to get me out of the house, but we all know this to be false! I mean, who wouldn’t miss this? Answer: nobody.

Warning: Excessive amounts of drama beyond this point.

From my quaint abode in Highlands Ranch I will make the treacherous journey to Denver International Airport. The roads that lead to my fate may possible be littered with the most reckless and dangerous of people that’s sole purpose in life is my downfall. But fret not, for I am prepared for an epic battle of my life. From there I will say a very teary goodbye to my parents and flee to security. There I will shout my parting words to America and gallivant towards my new life. At 6:05pm on the dot the plane will fire up its engines and I will feel its roar in my bowels. We will ascend to such heights that even the gods won’t be able to touch us (good thing for I am not currently on the best terms with them). The first section of my journey will come to a screeching halt in Frankfurt, Germany at 11.35am, and I will depart my temporary home of the plane with the attributes of a drunk. You see, I didn’t sleep on the plane at all because it was my duty as an American citizen to keep my eyes peeled for any suspicious activity. And by suspicious I mean an island that resembles “The Island” in any shape or form. I will wait on Frankfurt until episode two of my journey commences. At 1:35pm I will again rise to the heaven and travel to Munich to again disembark at 2:30pm. My return from my battles of greatness has yet to be confirmed, but I, the brave and gallant Shandre,  will make sure that this information becomes available to you as soon as me.

We now resume standard levels of theatrics.

It was quite a battle to get my tickets finalized and all that jazz. You see, Christoph and Max will be on their own little excursion to California while I am in Colorado awaiting my departure. They arrive late in the afternoon (5.45pm) on the 9^th of September, so obviously we tried to coordinate our flights so it would be less trouble for them. But I could not get a flight that landed later than 2.30pm! So I obviously took the flight.

For those of you that can’t do math, I have to wait on the Munich airport for around three hours before my host family comes. It will be just as I had a layover, and it will give me a chance to assert my independence! It will also give me the precious time I need to pretty myself up so that I don’t look like I rose from the Night of the Living Dead when I meet my host family. That would make things a tad awkward in the car ride back to the house.  This is what my mom says of course (she always has to be the reasonable one!). I, on the other hand, feel this will be a perfect opportunity to scope out the potential real estate of Germany… and I’m not talking about houses! *For those of you part of Rotary International, please ignore the previous comment* But in all seriousness (I know that it doesn’t happen often!) I am glad that I will have a few moments to gather my thoughts before meeting my host family.

When I was told all the wonderful and grand tales of getting a Guarantee Form back it made my mind soar. It was the thing that I looked forward to most out of the whole exchange (apart from my blazer and the beautiful men). I got it today. I guess this is a prime example of why exchange students shouldn’t have expectations. What did I get in the mail? A piece of paper. With information that I already knew. Exciting? No. But this is not to say that my disappointment in relation to my Guarantee Form lowered my overall excitement to Germany!

P.S. the above paragraph was my conclusion… so this blog is now over.

Regensburg :D

There is no general reason for this post, other than the fact that I feel the need to be technologically savvy today. So compliments of Shandre please enjoy this video! It is one of the few German songs that I can actually listen to more than once or twice J.

Where I will be exiled to... not that I am complaining

 So after much thought about the subject I decided that I would share this invaluable information that I have been hinting towards for so long. I just ask that any creepy stalker killers refrain from visiting me at my school to do what you do best… Kill people. Thank you very much J

It looks like Johannes-Nepomuk-Gymnasium Rohr will have to deal with me for a year! I feel that this is an adequate warning to all the teachers and students that currently attend JNG Rohr – and that if they choose to leave the facility before my arrival, they best do so soon.

For all of you that know German, feel free to investigate http://www.jngrohr.de/ for all your burning questions. But for the rest of us (and it pains me to say I am included in this group), I will do a little translating.  Let’s just hope that I won’t need Google Translate to save me for too long!

The St. John Nepomuk School is a monastic school whose allegiance is with the Benedictine abbey of pipe. Don’t worry if you have no idea what that means, because neither do I! I am hoping that it is all cleared up once I am there. I do know that it is a Catholic-based school, which may or may not present a problem. It would be an understatement to say that I am not a religious person, so it would be an equal understatement to say that it will be a completely different experience for me. My mother says (and I agree with her) that I should pretend this experience would be as I were doing a project on the world of religious schooling. It is exciting because in this world I will be a reporter for National Geographic and I will get to meet all these wonderful people! (I just sang that little jingleJ)

Technically JNG Rohr is a linguistic grammar school, which is awesomesauce because I love English. It is most definitely my favorite class in school. But English is not the only language that these people are talking about. After my year abroad I will be able to say that I know six languages: English, Afrikaans, Chinese, German, French, and Latin. It’s kind of daunting to think that I will have to learn French and Latin in school when I can barely speak German! This all just means that I can talk to more people in the world, and that is the most wonderful thing.

I am not that much of a physical and sporty person, but I am going to have to leave that part of Shandre at home when I get on the plane because that won’t correspond with German curriculum. I am going to be going from ThunderRidge, where I only have to take 4.5 months of physical education, to a school where you have to take it for 4 years! I am going from two gymnasiums, a soccer and football field, and tennis courts to two gymnasiums, and indoor swimming pool, a dojohall, and two sport fields. I am going to have channel my inner fish! What I find ironic is that the main sport here is Judo, which is Japanese. I am going to be learning a Japanese form of sport in a German school? Looks like they are more international that I thought!

Germans themselves seem to be more active than in Highlands Ranch. It isn’t suprising since the Bavarian Alps and Black Forest is just in their backyard! I am coming to the realization that I won’t be able avoid skiing forever. I am being thrown from the Ski State of America to the Ski State of Germany. Just my luck. I hope you are all crossing your fingers that I won’t come home with a bajillion broken bones and bruises.

At least I won’t be alone at JNG Rohr because they do independent exchanges with the United States, France, and the Czech Republic. It will be so refreshing to hear some ‘merican accents after being overwhelmed by people that could be insulting me all day for all I know. But Bavarians are rumored to be the most informal and kind people in Germany, so that is one less thing for me to worry about.

I guess this is bye. These things always have an awkward ending don’t they? (thumbs up for Charlie reference!)