Important Notice

Sorry, this is still in maintenance!

Hi and welcome to my blog!

If you are a first-time visitor, or looking for the posts I consider most important ('cause I'm posting a lot), please go here or click "About Me" at the top of the page!
Otherwise just have fun!


About me

Hi!
Welcome to my Blog! I'm happy you found it.

This page provides a (mostly) short overview about myself, the content of this blog, why this blog exists and a compilation of links to posts I think people might like to click farther down the page.
At the very end I am rambling a bit about myself for people who like that stuff.

I guess the tabs are pretty self-explanatory, but Blog is of course where my posted stuff is, My Residence is about British Columbia and Canada and My School for my fellow Germans (they're in German, sorry), My Reasons is about why I am doing this (I'm currently translating that), Packliste (packing list) is what I packed, and I will revise that (but it's also in German), and WeltEntdecker is a list of all the fellow blogs of people from Germany in a foreign country this year (which I know of).
To the left you can find all the labels and at the very bottom of my blog there's a time line. I'm working on this blog (again), getting it back up to date, so please have patience.

Anyway, please enjoy your stay on my blog!

About me

I'm Julia, 15, from Regensburg, Germany. My birthday is April 23, 1997, and I am an only child. My school in Germany is a Gymnasium* with about 1,500 students and I am spending tenth grade at KSS, or Kelowna Secondary School through kulturLife. I have a wonderful family of two younger sisters and their parents.


*(no, not a gym. That's what our school is called.)

 What you can find on this blog

Everything about my experience. I try not to hold anything back or gloss over anything - except of course certain personal details which are better not shared on the web.

My aim is to provide a mostly complete and true picture of my exchange year, which means there is everything from how I feel about my experience and what I see with my host family over my school days and subjects (Spanish, Japanese, Biology and English in Semester 1 and Entrepreneurship, Spanish, Math and Creative Writing in Semester 2, Journalism the whole year) to my pastimes - sometimes updates about writing, sometimes squeeing about Hockey - and the celebrations here.

Why this blog exists

Okay, I started this blog back in 2011 when I applied for the exchange year. I started posting (in German) and managed three full posts before forgetting about it. You can thank the amazing Dorothea for the continued posting, and I can't thank her often enough.
Because while it started out as just recording my experiences, it has now become my resort where I flee to when I need to dislodge all the feelings in my head. And it helps me keep things straight.
I switched to English after my departure (I even made a few posts bilingual, but that proved to be too much work, so I think I changed the language already before that).

Important things on my blog:

Okay, here are some things I'd like to link to right away, because in the mass of posts I've made, they easily get lost, and I still would like to have people find them.

  • How I came to the concept of an Exchange year (German)
  • An explanation about how I deal with my exchange year and what I have learned so far: 
  • Recap of my Semester One courses
  • Pictures from Lake Okanagan  




Other (mostly irrelevant) things you might like to know about me (because maybe you're like me and like to know a bit about the writer):
I enjoy writing and reading (a lot) and I try to keep my posts on the light side, maybe like I am talking to you right now. I like reading things that way, so this is the way I write.
My thoughts may jump from topic to topic, and while I have gotten better at staying focused over the years, I don't proof-read my posts. All mistakes are mine alone, and I post without changing anything. Maybe typos afterwards, but I haven't yet taken anything down because I am ashamed of it.
I don't mind talking about my feelings. In fact, I am discussing them sometimes very extensively (and yes, 1,832 words are extensive).
I like using parentheses ("()") to sometimes make irrelevant commentary that I wouldn't like to deprive you of, or to express sarcasm, so you will find a lot of those in my posts.
I can be obsessive, in that that I do things I like all the way for a period of time, before losing all interests. I can also be really social and don't think I have a problem making new friends, but I also am very content alone.
I also like talking about myself and my experiences, but I can also listen to other people.
I'm crazy about Hockey.
I mean, you can't go to Canada without hearing about Hockey, but I've become totally infected, even though there was the lockout (labour dispute) and there was no season until the 19th of January.
I also can't write a short post. I never managed that and I don't think I will. I always find something to write about. Which is why this post has gotten this long, but at least I am placing this under a cut, so you don't have to read it :) Thanks anyway.