“Am 24.September sind meine Familie und ich nach Puerto Prinsesa gegangen. Wir haben vielen Sehenswürdigkeiten gesehen. Zuerst haben die schönen Strände besucht. Es war sonning.

Wir haben geschwommen. Mit einem Boot sind wir nach den kleinen Inseln gefahren. Die Strände wart sehr schöne.

Am zweiten Tag, sind wir den Puerto Prinsesa unterirdischen Fluss gegangen.

Die Tour war nicht gruselig.Wir haben viel Spaß gemacht weil unser Reiseführer sehr komisch war. Wir sind dort bis 26.September geblieben. “

Wir haben in einem putzigen Haus gewohnt. Dort habe ich deutsche und französische Bücher gefunden denn die Touristen lasst eine Erinnerung züruck.„

*whoo*

German10

I spent some time with a relative who came home from Japan. She's considerably older than I am but we are both in our second year of college. She said that Japan has six years of High School, just like Deutschland and the likes I thought. Then I've read somewhere that Japan purposely revamped their education system to mimic that of Deutschland und Frankreich in order to become more globally competitive.

Sie spricht vier Sprachen. Sie kann Englisch, Japanisch, Filipino, und ein bisschen Französisch. Ja, war ich slightly impressed, I must say.

She came to Japan when she was a second year HS student here in the Philippines. It was a complete change of environment obviously. She went from long, checkered, ankle-low school skirts to short, checkered, japanese anime school skirts.

I asked her how long it took before she could speak like an anime and she said it took her a little over two months. Zwei Monaten! I thought it was blasphemy! I've been studying languages for a year now and I could not even construct a sentence without having a brain aneurysm.

It darted at the back of my mind that maybe she was just showing off.

Aber ja, if you think of it, it is really plausible. You would have no choice but to learn the language or be swept aside into social redundancy. My friend said that she became more fluent in Spanisch after spending drei Wochen or so in Spanien.

Zwei things are at work here: the life-threatening urgency of learning the language and the state of being surrounded by it 24/7.

When I look at my situation, I see that these zwei factors are barely seen even with a magnifying glass. The life-threatening urgency only throbs when it senses exams coming and the state of being surrounded by it 24/7 has been reduced to a mere 1 ½ /4. So I have resolved to intensify plan language-learning, send in more troops and explosives.

I’ve always thought that the key to learning a language was immersing yourself into it. So whenever I have the chance, I listen to French and German radio, I read articles on the net, I watch interviews of my crushes talking in French or German. So now, I vow to do only these things forevermore.

Aber nein, I also think that one of the most important factors in language learning is having fun and enjoyment as your driving forces. Sometimes, this acts like a full moon for me, it comes and it vanishes. Maybe because sometimes it comes across as another nagging academic responsibility I have to shoulder. So there, the inspiration to learn, I believe it is there I just have to build on it more.

Lately It’s been a normal hobby for me to listen to French and German Radio, but more on the French Radio(the DJ is funnier). I’ve changed my FB account to German. I’ve changed my Google settings to display searches in French and German so when I want to read an article I have to read it in the language. No cheating! Now I just Yahoo for my English searches. Hard at first but through daily immersion, possible.

Hurricane Festival 2010

I'm not going to write about how I rocked out, partied, drank booze during this 3-day rock fest because first, I wasn't there.

It looked fun though.

Music Festivals are very popular in Europe. Until now I've only known about the most popular of them like, Glastonbury, T in the Park, Isle of Wight which are all in England, Oxegen in Ireland, and Rock am Ring in Germany. But recently I've discovered that a band close to my heart played Hurricane Festival and as I've googled this so-called Hurricane Festival I found out that it's also held in Germany, more specifically in Scheeßel.

So I researched about this so-called Scheeßel and found out that it is in the so-called state of Lower Saxony in North Germany which led me to research about Germany's government, which led me to the UN archives, which led me to read about federalism, which led me to the CIA's World Fact Book which kind of scared me and kind of left me tired, and finally led me to just watch Hurricane Festival videos on youtube.

der Wievielte ist heute? 'cause I have to say goodbye to Lenin

We started learning numbers in German and I was wondering of ways in which I could practice this newly-acquired skill. Counting steps while going down the stairs was surely out of the question considering my poor coordination. I would just trip and fall. Naming the date of the day I was in was a possible option if not for me always being oblivious to the day and date. I go through weeks on end without having a hint of what date it is. I visualize myself in the middle of this dialogue:

God: My daughter why art thou unprepared for this day, the Judgement day? I see all your brothers and sisters have prepared for the coming of December 21, 2012. For this you would surely go to hell.

Me: Wait up, today is December 21? I thought it was still the 12th. My bad, God.

So scratch that.

Then yesterday I thought of counting interesting things. First thing that came to my delusional mind was how many times I brushed my teeth per day note that I was in the bathroom at that time. So that was eins, zwei. Good, good. We're doing some progress here.

How many time have I tripped in public, eins, zwei, drei. How many days 'till Gloria steps down, after checking the calendar, eins, zwei, drei, fier, funf, sechs. For how long have I got this cold eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf with the umlaut, sechs, sieben, acht, neune, zwen, elf, ...zwanzig --- I am now willing to risk getting OD if only it will go away .

After counting some more interesting things that popped into my head I felt confident that the day is not far when I could count the sands in the beach or/and, depends on my mood probably, the stars in the sky...in German. My cousin even suggested that I read the election results so I can practice on the big numbers. I felt so outdated while doing it. However through this I discovered that the guy I liked didn't even make it to eine Million.

However I eventually got drained from counting so I watched Goodbye, Lenin a German film recommended by my classmate. From the way he unfolded the plot to us, I took it as a full-on comedy about a family in the midst of the tumbling of the Berlin Wall.Naturally, I cursed him when I started crying at the middle of the movie.

The movie gave a sincere portrayal of the change that went like blitzkrieg through East Germany as capitalism from the West waved in. It surrounded the case of a family whose household drama can rival what they have on Tayong Dalawa. Anyway as I've said, it was really touching and it sort of gave me an insight on German History. And yes, there was a whiff of comedy in there too so all in all it was an entertaining watch. It starred David Brühl who played Frederick Zoller from Inglourious Basterds. It turns out he is fluent in Spanish, French, German, English,and Catalan. Ok, I officially like him if just for that.

Next German film I'm going to watch is probably The White Ribbon. My friend said that he almost got into a coma while watching it therefore I foresee some laughing and perhaps jumping excitement from me when I watch it.

P.S. In relation to numbers---Einstein, I figured, then translates to one stone. hahaha. I feel like a genius!

The KFC special menu and homosexuals

I've been watching episodes of South Park and The Simpsons auf Deutsch on Youtube during the weekend, so I'd probably be learning how to say fuck first auf Deutsch than to say mother in it (or maybe the two of them combined). Nine, kidding aside I found myself still laughing even though 98% of the time I was hearing words that seemed to be typed randomly on the keyboardhfhbfrfybfyrue. The good side is that the remaining 2% of the time I actually recognized words. Similar to the listening exercises we do in class. Those are the hallelujah moments.

I recognized the word entschuldigung! entschuldigung! being shouted by Eric in one of the episodes. I conclude that it could also mean excuse me or pardon me since he was shouting it to get the attention of the noisy bikers. I also understood the phrase KFC spezial Menü or something and the word homosexuell.

I know I won't understand everything, obviously, so it's good to take things into context and be observant of the details that help piece together the crime scene ala Sherlock Holmes. This Nobel prize-worthy conclusion of mine also applies to the latest exercise of trying to comprehend an article written in German.

As for the South Park episode though...the KFC special menu and the homosexuals are enough to make my imagination whirl for now.