Graduierung Herausforderung

I know where I'm living and who my host family is...Gotcha, just joking. I might not know where I will be next year, but I have made more progress on other things related to my year abroad.

My high school requires that every senior complete an independent learning project called Graduation Challenge. Even though I will be in Germany next year, I am not exempt from having to do Graduation Challenge myself. The obvious topic choice for me to center my Graduation Challenge around was learning the German language. My project is titled "Learning German through Immersion".

Every student must have a Community Consultant to help them along the way with Grad Challenge. The Community Consultant must be familiar with whatever the student's topic is. Today I had a meeting in Burlington with my Community Consultant, Mrs. Vanderputten. Mrs. Vanderputten, a French teacher at my high school, was a perfect choice because she went to Germany for a year while she was in high school. Her experience abroad and her language expertise will be very helpful as she guides me through all the parts of Grad Challenge. My high school doesn't usually allow students to use faculty members as Community Consultants, but since I am traveling so far away from CVU, Mrs. Vanderputten will serve as an anchor for me back in Vermont. 

Along with Mrs. Vanderputten, I have decided to keep a journal in addition to this blog. In my journal I will jot down anything that I learned or found interesting that day. By the time I leave Germany, the journal will be a great resource to reference when writing the dreaded Grad Challenge paper that is required of me. We also decided that I will write her a letter once a month because she claims that when she was in Germany writing allowed her to get her thoughts out in the most effective way.

I like to end each blog post with something cultural. Germany right now is competing in the Euro Cup 2012. For those of you Americans who are ignorant about European soccer, the Euro Cup is like the World Cup for Europe. If you don't know what the World Cup is, then there is no hope for you. Germany won all of their game in pool play and has advanced to the quarter-finals against Greece on Friday. Let's go Germany! Here is a video of the German coach messing around with a ball boy during one of their first games. I thought it was funny.