Christmas

Hi there :)

Looks like you had a lot of fun on Wednesday :) I love the little film :)
Today would be my last school day, but because I have the final rehearsal for the concert with my orchestra I'll miss my lessons. It's such a shame ;)
The last few weeks weren't really excinting. But I still did some things :)
A lot of my free time was filled with baking.
I made a lot of Swiss christmas biscuits, but I tried a english tradition as well; Mince pies.
I don't think they are really the way they should be, but you can eat them and they are not too bad ;)

Now I wish you merry christmas and a very happy new year :)
I'll see you soon :)
Lena

Dear class mates abroad
We are celebrating our "Wiehnachtshöck" at the Spinnerei with mister Werner. At the beginning the two children of him were here too and miss Geisser of course (our German-teacher). We were bored and  so we began to dance a little bit XP I hope you will enjoy it. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Cheers Danilo and the whole class G2B
<33333333333333333333

We miss you!!!!!!

http://host-d.oddcast.com/php/application_UI/doorId=1177/clientId=299/?mId=54139513.2

Hey There!

This are the delayed news from last week (2nd- 6th of December).
Monday was as boring as usual. But Tuesday was horrible! Because on the afternoon we had a English test and afterwords directly a 90 minutes math test about trigonometric functions. The results were disastrous. The average was a 3.1. (AWESOME!)

In the evening the Chinese people(haha Jana, Poorvi & Nicole) had a cinema night with the Kanti Baden (they were soooo looouuud -.-).

In English we read the 3rd chapter of our book Animal Farm.

On Thursday in history class we got a very lovely text about Ludwig XIV's health.
Here a little taste of that: Well his doctors thought that it was very dangerous for a king to have 100% healthy teeth. So they took all of them out and broke jaw twice and a piece of palate followed the teeth... (Delicious!)
And that wasn't even the worst part (but it was very interesting).

So now we wish you a lovely stay & bon appétit!

-Jana & Alexandra

George Milton

George

appearance:
small and quick, dark of face, restless eyes, sharp and strong features

small, strong hands, slender arms, thin and bony nose

personality:

smart and intelligent, sensitive, caring, distant, adapting, no trouble maker, careful, protective
→ his behaviour is bipolar: he's short-tempered in general but with Lennie he's patient as soon as it concerns very serious issues.

Lennie and George grew up together and he started to take care of him when Lennie's aunt Clara died. George is like a big brother to Lennie even though he's sometimes mad at him because Lennie often gets into trouble. He's constantly trying to keep Lennie safe and one of his biggest desires is to make their dream, to own their own farm, come true. The first time we hear him telling Lennie the story about the dream it sounds like a fairytale, but later on, when it seems to come true, he starts telling it in another way.
In the group of the „underdogs“ (Crooks, Lennie, Old Candy) he's kind of the boss who's telling the others what to do and what (not) to tell. This responsibility is kind of forced upon him.

relationships

-Curley: distant, weary, careful because he knows that he could get into trouble with him

-Curley's wife: no big interaction
-Slim: admiration, understanding without many words, respect, trust
-workers: the closest “friends” they could get in their situation

One day when they were young, George told Lennie to jump into a lake even though he knew that he didn't know how to swim.
Then, as George realised that Lennie's in serious danger, he jumped into the water too and saved him.
Lennie didn't understand, that he just got into trouble because of his “hero” and he was so thankful that George started to feel guilty. Maybe this is a reason that he still feels responsible for Lennie. He probably searches a way to make up for what he has done.

It could also be possible to connect this situation to things happening in the current time.
For example after George was screaming at Lennie and Lennie proposed to leave and never come back, he replied in a way as he would be afraid that something's going to happen to Lennie just because of him.

→ page 20: “ I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody'd shoot you for a coyote if you was by yourself.”

Also the relationship to Slim is special. He seems to be the first person after a long time, who's really listening to him. And probably he's the right person for George to tell his story, because he doesn't receive any cynical comments from him. It's just important to him not to keep everything in his own mind because there's so much he's worrying about that it would drive him crazy if he couldn't get it off his chest.
Slim's the one who takes on his burden.

George symbolises the perfect “mouse”.
Under all the other workers he nearly seems to be invisible, he doesn't get into big trouble and he's just like everyone else. A part of the big mass.

Lisa, Nicole

Carlson

Carlson is more of a "flat" character than a "round" one (If you don't remember: at the beginning of our first year, we talked about different types of characters. There were round = usually major, important characters where we see a lot of different facets and flat = usually minor, secondary characters with one particular character trait). He doesn't really play a central role in the book and therefore he doesn't appear a lot. I found precisely four scenes where Carlson played a part . Not the best circumstances to write a 1 1/2 pages long essay about him, right? Just kidding, I decided by myself to write about him, because after finishing the book, I saw Carlson only as a ruthless dork and I was kinda interested in if there is more behind this guy. Due to the lack of information in the book, my text is mainly based on these few scenes where Carlson plays a role, and a lot of interpretation from my point of view.

The first time we meet Carlson in the book is when George and Lennie just arrived at the ranch and were talking with Slim. Carlson asked Slim if he could give one of his puppies to Candy because the dog Candy had right then was really old and stank, he also wanted Slim to convince Candy to shoot the old dog. Not a nice first impression, right? This scene shows that he hates that dog and tries everything to get rid of it, only because it stinks. This is a very egoistic and ruthless behaviour.

The second time we meet Carlson is when the dog gets shot. He talked so long to Candy until the old man gave up and had to agree to kill his dog. When Candy told him he couldn't shoot it, Carlson offers to shoot the dog by himself. To reach his goal, he would do everything. He doesn't understand the relationship between Candy and his dog, he doesn't understand Candys emotions, he just carries his own point.
Carlson got his Luger, a pistol and probably his most precious property and dragged the poor dog out of the barn. At least he promised Candy: "It won't feel anything". But if he really meant it that way, or if that was just an empty promise to calm Candy down a bit, we don't know.
When Carlson dragged the dog out, Slim even had to remind him to take a shovel with. I'm asking me if Carlson really planned to just shoot the dog and let its dead body lying on floor. He didn't plan it through, he just wanted to get rid of his object of hate as soon as possible.

In the very last scene of the book where George killed Lennie, Carlson appears once again and we get another impression of this guy. George just shot his friend Lennie in the head and of course feels horrible right after. But Carlson, he doesn't care at all. He just asked George if Lennie really had his precious gun, "Did he have my gun?".
And when Slim took George away to help him to get over the incident, Carlson was standing, not comprehending anything and said to Curley, who also didn't understand anything: "Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin' them two guys?"

He totally doesn't get Georges emotional state and how he feels. It seems like he never had a friend, has always been alone and never felt friendship. Carlson is a perfect example for what being a lonley worker in California turns you into. A cold-hearted and emotionally blunted.

I hope I could give you an impression of Carlson,
My-Nhien

Of Mice and Men – by John Steinbeck

Slim

Slim is a worker on the ranch, he has almost the same position and influence as the boss' son. He is a jerkline skinner, that means he is a mule driver. He seems to be “The Prince of the Ranch” (36) .

Slim is a person of extraordinary appearance. His face looks ageless. He could be 35 or 50. He is the most cultivated worker on the ranch. His hair is black and long and he has it combed back. Because of how tall he is he has a certain majesty in the way he moves. His hands are large and lean. With his blue-jeans and his short denim jacket he integrates himself in the workers group, but he isn`t like the workers of this ranch, he is sensitive and understands people and their relationships between them. Steinbeck describes him in a very fascinating way, because he steps out of the limited third person narration and gushes when he describes him. Slim works with animals and is master of non-verbal communication. He is able to empathise with others and this gives him a certain trustworthiness.

Slim is a character who never changes through the entire story. He always is in peace with himself, no matter what happens. His tone was friendly. It invited confidence without demanding it (36). This shows how engaged Steinbeck is to give us a good image of Slim and how Slim has the possibility to infect people with his confidence. People feel better when they spend time with him. As said, the glorification on page 36 is really extraordinary in the whole book.

Slim is the one who takes the right decisions and always stays calm.

Written by Danilo and Jonathan

Curley's wife

Hi all! How are you guys abroad?
We are fine and working in English class at the moment. We (Rahel and Poorvi) have analyzed the character of Curley's wife in our novel Of Mice and Men. Now we have to write a small blog post about her.

First of all, we want to describe her personal appearance. Here is a passage when she first appears in our novel: "full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes; heavily made up. Her finger-nails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers." (33-34) In general, she is described as a pretty woman. She knows that she is beautiful and likes to show off by dressing up even though she is in the middle of nowhere on a farm.  In short, she is a young, attention-seeking woman.

Now to her character: Because of her youth, she doesn't have a lot of  experience and is rather naive. You can see that when she decides to marry Curley even though she doesn't know him at all. She just did it out of impulse because she was angry, like a child sometimes does. Another example is, when she talks about her dream: She really thought she would receive that letter from Hollywood and would be in the movies. Anybody with a common sense would see immediately that the guy promising her that was lying. By pouring her heart out to Lennie, she also reveals that she's very lonely and desperate. She doesn't have anybody to talk to and Lennie was the next best option. With different words, how desperate do you have to be to confide in a mentally retarded person?

Finally, we can say that in the social hierarchy, she is above the workers but below Curley - but in maturity-wise, only Lennie (with a mental disorder) is lower than her. As her name is never mentioned, we think she is a substitute for women with the same fate.

Greeeeeeeetings from the beautiful KSWE <3 <3 <3 haha
Poorvi & Rahel

Crooks

Crooks

Crooks is the black stable-hand. He is very lonely because he is a „negro“ and the other workers totally ignore and reject him. That's why he normally hates it if other workers come into his room, the place where he can relax and hide and where he feels safe. He withdraws because he thinks: „What others do to me I'll do to them.“

So when Lennie comes into his room he wants to protect his own little realm and tries to throw him out. When Lennie doesn't want to leave he invites him in and they start talking. But as soon as he realizes that Lennie is mentally inferior, he starts to exploit this to his advantage. He tries to make him feel as lonely and lost as he feels all the time, so he tells him that George wouldn't come back. At first he enjoys Lennie's fear. But when Lennie is freaking out and gets mad, wanting to attack Crooks, he has to admit that he may be superior to Lennie mentally but when it comes to physical strength he is absolutely inferior. Immediately he tries to appease Lennie to save his own skin.

At this point you see that he doesn't know anything about human connections. If he had known how Lennie would react when he heard that George was in danger he wouldn't have made fun of him.

Crooks is one of the saddest characters in the book because he always experienced the exact opposite of love, sympathy and friendship in his whole life. So the bound between Lennie and George amazes him and he is a little jealous of that.

Crooks has accepted his destiny as a negro because he knows that he doesn't have any other choice. But when Lennie tells him about the farm Crooks sees a person who tries to change his own way of living. But Crooks got too pessimistic in all these years to believe that fairy tales like the plan of Lennie and George can come true.

Alisha & Alexandra

Lennie Small

Lennie is a huge man with a not remarkable face. He has large and pale eyes. He walks bent over like a old man. It doesn't fit with his body. His movings are like the one from a bear. He has much muscles and can't control his strength. When you look at him you see a man who is very strong but you wouldn't think that he is mentally retarded and his behaviour is like a child.

We can see that he is not that bright because he forgets everything and his thoughts are the same like that one from a child. He always wants to touch what he sees and likes. That's because Lennie and George often get in trouble.

He has a big dream of a farm with alfalfa for the rabbits and a lot of other animals. To petting animals he likes very much even if they are dead. He can't feel the tenderness of the animals and so he kills them often by mistake. George has always to tell about the ranch. It was just a dream of George and Lennie but Lennie told everyone because he can't have secrets.

In the beginning of the book, he was very dependent on George and he just did what he was told. But during the book he gets more independent.

George told him not to speak to Curley's wife but he didn't listened to him and started to talk with her. During the conversation she allowed him to touch her hair. This leads to the catastrophe because he can't stop and she started to cry. He gets panic and kill her by mistake. He broke her neck. So he had to leave the farm because Curley wanted to kill him. Thats why George searched him in the bush and killed him finally. 

Of Mice and Men: Candy

Candy is the oldest worker on the farm, tall and stoop-shouldered. He is a swamper and does the cleaning. Actually he isn't able to work properly on the farm like all the other guys, because he lost his right hand. So therefore he is in a very low position in the hierarchy of the farm. Candy is a kind of on the same level as Crooks. He isn't a nigger, he is allowed to sleep in the same bunkhouse, but still he isn't integrated on the farm, because he is handicapped and old and not one of the good workers. He doesn't have any human friends, but he has got his old dog. Carlson thinks it stinks and is of no use anymore. But for Candy it is the only friend he has, otherwise he would be lonely and completely on his own. Carlson wants him to shoot the dog, but Candy doesn't agree, because it was the best sheep dog he ever had. In the end, Candy gives up and lets Carlson shoot his dog. Later he realizes that it was a big mistake not to do it on his own. It was his friend and it didn't deserve to die this way and be killed by a stranger. He is very sad about this, but then he hears Lennie ask George to talk about their dream again.

From this moment on, Candy is happier, because he believes in their dream and that he can have a better future on his own farm. He has an agreement with George and Lennie that he can do the cleaning and help them to feed the animals. For this service he is allowed to live in peace and respected on their farm. If everything goes perfectly well, George, Lennie and Candy will have the money soon. But then Lennie breaks Curley's hand and the future of the three guys is unsure. When Lennie kills Curley's wife everything is over for Candy. His only worry is the dream and not Lennie's life. He isn't scared that Lennie will get lynched by Curley and the other guys, he can think only about the dream. Candy is very selfish in this moment and then George tells him that the dream was just to make Lennie happy and give him an imagined future. It was never supposed to become real. Candy is sad and the only thing he can do in this moment is to watch George leave, in search of Lennie.

Maybe it is unfair of Candy that he acts like that. But it's also understandable. He is old and lonely. Nobody really seems to like him. He isn't accepted as a member of the group, he is just tolerated as the guy who does the swamping on the farm. The only possibility to escape from this unpleasant situation is to flee in another and better life somewhere else. This dream was with Lennie's and George's dream so near and almost reached, but now it is gone forever. He won't be able to change his life now and has to live as the swamper on the farm for the rest of his life.

Xenia, Noah 

Christmas is coming! (:

Hi, I just got the e-mail from the Volleynight. Are you playing? Hopefully better than last year and have fun!

Happy 'Samichlaus mit Grittibänz'

I'm now enjoying my vacation since more than one week. Because I'm an exchange students I only had to take the English test and so I can just enjoy life (:
I met up with all the other exchange students, because they all have nothing to do. With them we still speak English, because no one really speaks Icelandic, except the other girl from Switzerland and till now we still speak Swissgerman together, although it might work better to speak Icelandic :D

on the countryside

Over the weekend I was in another city (8000 inhabitants) visiting someone I know. It was really nice and I also got to know a little bit of the countryside, what I love.
It's not that easy for me, to go to the countryside on my own. It is not far at all, but there are now buses driving to the nowhere and I'm not allowed to drive.
But the Advent is also nice here in Reykjavík and I really enjoy walking through the city and search for Christmas presents, although I never have enough time for that, there are so many other things going on. I also got to know a lot of (Icelandic) Christmassongs, which I'm going to sing on different concerts with the choir. With the violin I also play on a concert from the music school.

Christmas in town

 I wish you all merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

movie night

Hi all! Alisha and Poorvi here :)

We will tell you all about our little movie night we had with our Miss. I'm sure you can guess which movie we watched ;) of course it was "Of Mice and Men"

Here's a picture of the cover :) (btw: George - the guy on the right - has a role in CSI: New York) :P
After our Economy test on Wednesday about accountancy (Buchhaltung), we all went to the english class room. Some of us had ordered pizza and Miss had brought us some home-made muffins and popcorn. We had lots of fun!!

In our normal english lesson we started our new novel "Animal Farm" after having discussed the cover and the content of it.

Have a nice day!! ;)
Alisha and Poorvi <3

Lovely class mates out there
We are having English class right now and while we were searching for information about our character from the book "of mice and men" we found something very funny and we thought you could have a look at it. I hope you' ll enjoy it. It is like a satire summary of this story, so don't take it too serious.
Greez from G2B mothership (CH)
P.S. written by Jonilo and Danathan :P

http://thewallmachine.com/iyuUf2.html

A little bit of Switzerland over in Britain :)

 

To bring a little bit of swiss culture into England, I decided to cook my hostfamily a proper swiss meal.
Once we had fondue (with real swiss fondue cheese) and ones I cooked an 'Älplermakrone with Öpfelmues'
They found it very weird to eat pasta and potatoes with apples xD But after they tried it, they agreed that it actually tastes quite good.

This just as a little input :)

I hope you are all enjoying school...more or less :P

Vanessa

Lovely class mates abroad

I have to say that it`s very interesting how this blog works, i hope you are all happy and that you really enjoy. Our topic in the last few weeks are "speeches" we looked at the speech of John F. Kennedy and at Martin Luther Kings "I have a dream", I thought it would be nice to give you a link to a nice song that includes part of this speeche. enjoy it!! 

cheers Danilo :) <3

 P.S. 

Song from Bakermat "Vandaag"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ961O92NDw

Just pictures

Hi there

At the moment I'm just going to school during the week and try to enjoy my free time. There's nothing really exciting going on. I thought, though, that our blog is not really active at the moment..
So I decided to show you a few photographs:

Have fun!
Lena

Mýs og Menn

Because you're all talking about Of Mice And Men: This is how I met this book here in Iceland (:

It's going to be in the theater and I saw this poster, as I was in the theater watching Marry Popins (:
I'm not planing to go, but who knows...

21.10. - 25.10.

Hi everybody

It's the second week after autumn-break... and there are only 8 weeks left until christmas-break :p

Right at the beginning on Tuesday we had our listening comprehension. There were two main topics. The first one was about an interview with a female writer, who won an award. It was a simple multiple choice exercise and quite easy to solve it, but the second one was more difficult. We had to write in our own words and full sentences. The topic was how reading affects our brains. The origins of the reading of today are connected to the hunting skills from our predecessors. They needed the visual skills to “read” the tracks of the animals they wanted to hunt.

In halfclasses we started writing about the characters in “Of Mice and Men”. Probably you already saw the plots about the different characters on the blog. In this weeek we also finished reading the novel.

This week was exhausting in general because we had exams in: Latin, Geography, Maths and an essay in French.

Now we hope you enjoy your exchange far away from Wettingen and wish you a good time.

Cheers

Nicole, Xenia and Noah

Of mice and men...

I just saw this poster, being suspended on the wall of my school, staring at me xD I always have to think of you when I pass it. So I thought, I have to take a picture...
Of mice and men is a very popular school book over here. There had to read it in years seven to eleven. To discuss it, to analyze it, to present it...and now, no one wants to talk about this book any longer, because they just hate this book after all this years xD

I hope this isn't happening to you so far ;) Enjoy your reading :) Vanessa :*

Holiday

Hi there

This week is now our week off from school here in England :)
No school, but still quite a lot of homework....
But first I enjoy my holiday.
From Saturday to Tuesday I was in Edinburgh with a group of about 25 other exchange students.
We had a great time and saw a lot of this fabulous city!
The other exchange students were from Norway, Finland, Australia, Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, but we talked all the time English. We tried to speak German once or twice, but it felt so strange that we changed back to English after one ot two sentences. We are just so used to it after two months of English all the time!
I met a few Swiss girls and we spent a lot of time together, exploring the city and the Scotish culture.
My camera was with me all the time, so I can show you a few bits of Edinburgh:

Shopping was also a part of our Trip ;)

Scotts Monument and National Gallery

View from a little hill next to Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

I hope you don't have that much of work and you can enjoy the autumn!
Bye
Lena

First week after autmn break

Hello everyone!
Full of energy & super motivated (haha) we started school after the long break.
In the half-class English lesson on Monday morning we began easy with talking about our Vario-Week and how holidays have been. After this "welcome back to school" we grabbed our books "Of Mice And Men" and discussed about chapter IV. Every student will have to pick a character of the book and write a description about him/her.

On Tuesday, full-class English lesson, we talked about our holidays again and got our exam about time tenses and vocabulary (describing people) back. The average is a solid 4.7 :)

And today, Rahels 18th birthday, we tried to sing "Happy Birthday" for her, but it didn't sound very good... Miss Nyffenegger wasn't really content with us ;D After that we solved some exercises in the book about vocabulary to the topic "Education".

We wish you a nice weekend :)
Romina & My-Nhien

About stereotypes

'England is the country where it always rains'
I'll never use this sentence again. It is just not true. In this more than 50 days in which I'm now staying here, I just had one week rain. No really! I think i had probably less rain that I use to have back in Switzerland :P
To tell no something about the english weather; it is most of the time quite similar to the swiss weather and temperatures. Maybe we have a little bit more wind over here because of the location of the island... But in general it is really nice weather and I'm really enjoying it. :) The thermometer shows still temperatures around 20°C. And even though the sea is now going to bee more rough, it's still so beautiful.
On the weekend we had fish and chips (my first fish and chips during my exchange^^) at the seafront in the warm light of an orange sunset. :) :) It was very nice.

But still there are some existing stereotypes. Like the tea. I've never seen so many people drinking tea. So I have to say, they don't really have a 'tea-time' like we would imagine it (so at any rate nobody who  I know..) but still they drink a lot of tea. A friend of my class told me that she sometimes has 20 cups of tea in a normal day... xD 

Another funny thing which they told me is, that the schools in England are closed if they have more snow than 10cm. Because the trains shut down and all the buses are unable to pass the streets. And you don't go to work any longer. 

But the most stupid thing about this is, that every family starts to buy a lot of food and rations, in case that i would snow for more than three days...So the english people can't handle snow^^

I though it would be funny to have the same rule in Switzerland too- we wouldn't have school the whole winter xD 

I hope you are all enjoying your holidays ( I'll have mine in two weeks :) ) 

With nice greets; Vanessa :) 

Dear all,

I hope you all enjoy autumn break - it's been lovely to catch up with some of you on here, hence a little treat from our country project days last February/March:

Welcoming a tiny visitor in our classroom

A special "concert"...

Have a lovely time, and keep posting - cheers, your "Miss"

Enjoy your holiday!

Hi there:)
I hope you enjoy your holiday!
My school started only four weeks ago, so I don't have holiday already. But that doesn't matter. I really like the school and my subjects. I have only three, English language, maths and geography. All the people are very nice and the teachers, or the tutors (that's how they are called), always look that we exchange students understand everything. Altogether are the subjects mch easier than in Switzerland. In maths for example we do things we did in Switzerland in the third or forth Bezirksschule. And in English we looked at nouns and verbs. But I think it's getting more difficult with the time and at the moment I'm glad about it, because it's easier to understand. Though the understanding is acctually no problem anymore. :)
I didn't really make friends yet. It's quite difficult, because there are different classes in every subject and you see the people only twice a week for two hours. And in these you can't talk about something different than the subject. But it's still early and I already know some really nice people.
Beside the school I train twice a week in an athletics club, surprise, surprise ;)
The Training is just great! It is really hard, but the group is so nice and the coach is funny :)
I really love it! :)
And my hostmother is also really nice! Since last Friday we live now in the new house (My Hostmother and me moved house)  It's a really cute and cosy little house. I definitely prefer this one to the old one.

Old house

Moving...

New house

Again enjoy your holiday and have a lot of fun!
Bye Lena

daria í frí

Hi guys!
I hope your all doing as well as I, because I like my life here in Iceland from day to day more (:
Now I have frí (=vacation) but it's only three days -Wednesday til Friday. We don't have longer holidays because I think I have almost the whole december free, except maybe a few tests I have to take. And they finish school in beginning of may, so we don't have more school then you do..
I really enjoy my vacation, althouh I don't really have plans, except sleeping long, going to choir and violin lessons and meeting friends, but it's wonderful!
Yesterday we baked Icelandic pancakes with one of the other exchange students and an Icelandic girl. Icelandic pancakes are similar to crepes. They are really thin and not that easy to make. It needs a special pan and you have to be very skilful. Sóley, the Icelandic gril wasn't patinet enough to do it and Mateo, the other exchange stundent was sleeping, so I had to do them, but it was a lot of fun, and in the end they looked really good and also tasted awesome. But it was a lot and I ate that much, that I couldn't eat icecream in the evening and I had to look on my siblings eating the best icecream in town :(

 

 

Sóley, Mateo, Pancakes and I (:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also don't speak that much English anymore. At home, I speak almost only Icelandic. I understand it if people speak slowly and with easy words. I can also almost always say, what I want, that they understand me, but it's not always correct, because in Icelandic every word changes and that kind of hard to learn, as the guys of you in Latin maybe know. Imagine speaking Latin, that's Icelandic :P
In school there are some people, they speak English with me, althoug I speak Icelandic, but I think they'll change to Icelandic soon.
I also have English classes, and there we learn a lot, or we should learn a lot (our teacher don't know how to keep us quite). We mostly learn vocabulary and not that much grammar but I have some grammar for you -in Icelandic :D
But the teacher is nice. In the last class before the vacation we watched Friends (:

conditional clauses in icelandic

enjoy your vacation!

Last week before "Variowoche"

Hi all, Alisha and Poorvi here :)

You guys in England and Iceland (?) will be happy to hear that the weather here in Switzerland has not been that nice (autumn is coming quite quickly). Anyhow, here's what we did this week:

In English, we started Unit 4. We read about 35-year old journalist who went to school as a pupil for a week to find out if school these days is more difficult than when he was at school. In the end he said that you can't compare school from today with "his" school.

Our next project for "Of Mice and Men" is to choose a character and describe it. We'll start that after our holiday (yes, that's correct as vacation and holiday have the same meaning in British English :D)

On Friday we played a game :) It was like "Stadt, Land, Fluss" with these topics: Food, Sports, Personality, Transport and Travel, Describing People and Money. It was fun :)

So, that was everything concerning English... But we want to tell what else happened during the week:

• Monday: we had a music test and we didn't have any maths :D
• Tuesday: nothing special :P
• Wednesday: PE (sport): 5km run. Only 6 girls ran (+ all the boys); the other girls were sick / injured. Noah was the fastest. We also had a physics test and another one in economy.
• Thursday: first test in Chinese for Chinese fans :P
• Friday: funny game & Zucchini-Chocolate-Cinnamon-Bread :) and now: PE... 

Wishing everyone a nice "Variowoche" and to those who will have an extra week of holiday: Enjoy them!

And last but not least: Enjoy your time wherever you guys are right now :)

See you soon!

Alisha and Poorvi

Rainy greets from the south-east coast of England ;)

Hei there :)

I'm staying now in my hostfamily for almost two weeks and I really enjoy it to be here. I've got a very nice hostfamily. My hostmother is very friendly and Emily (she's four) is so lovely. Also the male members are very nice. And I feel very comfortable.
Last week it was about 30 degrees over here :) No clouds and no wind. Just sun. And it was beautiful and a perfect time to swim in the sea :) :)
I went to the beach a few times with my hostmother, the children and the dogs, they really enjoyed their swim.
But yeah now the weather changed and it is raining all the time (just british weather).

Also the school is nice. But they just have to do 4 subjects and on a day you just have three lessons...
Thats weird xD But there are a lot of free-lessons between the lessons, so you have to stay in school about six hours.
And you don't have sports lessons...:/ I really miss it.
But the people are very nice and friendly. And also the teachers try to include the exchange students (there are fife on the whole school). So it's going well.

I hope your school is not to hard and stressful at the moment and I really hope that your weather is better than mine ;)

With the best greets from Whitstable, Vanessa :) <3

Of Mice and Men

We have been reading the novella 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck for four weeks now.

To help you guys comprehend the story we are writing a summary for you. :)

To start up, the main characters:

George Milton

He is a small and quick man, clever and smart. He has strong and sharp features and slender arms, strong hands and a thin and bony nose. Inside, George is really friendly and helpful, even though he doesn't always show it.

Lennie Small

His name doesn't describe him at all. Lennie is a very tall and big guy with very strong arms and hands. But he is not very bright. He behaves like a child and always forgets everything.

And now, the story:

George and Lennie are ranch workers. They travel around and look for work. George takes care of Lennie and helps him out of trouble. Sometimes it's hard for them to find work, because Lennie sometimes does strange things. Due to Lennie's strange behavior, even though he doesn't want to cause harm, they had to leave the last ranch. So they have to find a new job on a new ranch.

George sometimes gets mad because Lennie forgets everything. Lennie always feels very sorry and tries not to forget.

They found work on a ranch and until now everything is going quite well, because George speaks for Lennie and helps him to do everything right.

But we guess that something might go wrong and that the two guys are going to get in trouble.

Have fun with the book :D

JB and JD

hi guys!
It seems as if you are all doing well and working really hard in English class.
I'm still speaking English a lot, because everybody speaks English here and it's easier to have a conversation in English than in Icelandic, althoug I'm really trying to speak Icelandic, whenever I can, because I really want to learn it.
But yesterday I went out with the other two Rotary exchange students in Iceland and we spoke English the whole evening. As I came home around 11 p.m. I talked to my parents, again English. Before I went to bed, I wantet to write up my diary in German and I really had to think about the German and so I decided to write in English because I was to tired to think about every word! It was really strange, as I realised, that I was thinking in English and I couldn't remember words in my mother tongue. But I hope, that I'll soon have this feeling with Icelandic, then I want to learn Icelandic and not English, as other exchange students did the year before.

Mateo (Ecuador), Jessica (USA) and I in Reykjavík

At school I'm also in an English class. The level is, compared to all the other languages they learn at school, quite high. The teacher is also really nice and she was also an exchange student in the States, so she speaks English quite well. I like this class, because I understand a little bit more, than in the other classes, altough they speak often Icelandic in class. The school is anyhow really different here.
Everyone talks, whenever they want and they don't care about the teacher. It depends on the teacher, but they use their cellphones and computer always in class. If someone calls you in the lesson, you just walk out of the room and talk to him.
The English teacher tries to work, but it's not as easy with our class as she think it is. But we are having a test on Monday and fortunately I can explain the words, instead of translating them into Icelandic (:
The grammatical stuff we did, was about adjectives and adverbs and contracted sentences, but we worked more on the vocabulary then on the grammar. I'll see, how my first test in Iceland will be, but it doesn't really matter, I just have to take the exam that the teachers get their pay!

And I still love Iceland!!! It's wonderful and it's getting better every day. And guess what, last Thursday I didn't rain the whole day. It was just clear sky and after the frost from the night it was really warm during the day.

I wish you all a good time and keep on writing!

<3

Lena and Rahel Special

Ladies and......... Gentlemen
(drum rolls)
Welcome to the Lena&Rahel Special Show.
Okay, just kiddin'. ;)
We are sitting here in Rahel's room and we are eating self made cookies. That's  the awful truth. Really. We went to the cinema before and watched the film "ELYSIUM". The reason why this is in capital letters is: äh, we don't know. Actually, the film was very good (Lena thought it was very impressive...), but... Yes. It's a big BUT. It was sometimes so disgusting, totally blood-splattered, a lot of violence. Too much for our soft hearts. :(

Now, let's go to the serious part... (blue, dazzled light) (veeery depressed playing on the violin...) (taking out tissues....)
GRAMMAR (dadada (deep breathing))


-ed/ -ing adjectives
Some adjectives are used with two different endings.
e.g. boring/bored.
What's the difference?
1. The teacher is boring, because he talks all the time. (Is actually boring)
2. I'm bored because of the teacher. (Feeling just bored)

can/could/to be able to
I can cook = I am able to cook -> knowledge/ability/qualification
I could cook -> a specific offer/possibility (e.g. I could cook if my mother would help me)

can't/must/might/may
Impossible -> can't be
Certain -> must be
Possible -> might/may be

And now, we're going to enjoy our evening.
(happy music is played dudelidu...)

Lena&Rahel

Hey there! Here is the SoNaFe-Special

Hey everyone!
Nice to have heard from you. Daria, Island is beautiful!! Lena, Lara & Vani, lovely pictures. We hope you are well.
We have a SoNaFe-Special for you so you don't miss anything!

Here we started building our stand.

                                           We had a problem with the grafiti because everyone who touched it was pink :D

                                   

                                     This was our VIP-Lounge... You don't want to know what happened in there... XD



In the end we managed to finish our stand without getting all pink. We took away some of the tape because they weren't very inviting.On Friday 7 pm we finally finished it all and got our first customer:)
She loved the brownie!
So now a few pictures :D

This was our Special Energy-Drink. (Tank Some Energy, Put on your winkgs & off to space)

Hanging out with crazy friends :P

Testing the other stands. They are awsome!! Moustache like *-*

Do you recognize this jedi? :D

Awwww!! I want to keep them :)

The new security ;)

You to learn have much... XD

Some classmates having fun... :D

The SoNaFe this year was a lot of fun and we gained some money with our brownies and our customers were very lovely. Some of them were very drunk but it was entertaining to watch them :P

We hope to hear from you soon! :D
Enjoy the weekend
Alex & Jana (and the rest of the class) :)

Last Day in London

Hi there once again
Today we went to London again. Fortunatly the London Eye was opened today but first we visited the Tower of London and the Towerbridge.

The London Eye was very impressive and it was nice to see London from above.

As we were waiting we saw something known... Do you remember too? :)

Tomorrow our ways will devide and we'll join our own hostfamilies.
We hope you're having a nice Sonafe ;)
Bye
Lena, Lara & Vanessa