It's almost October and those of you who have been following me for a while know what that means: It's time for the Low Battery Challenge!
Last year I was all alone, trying to use as little technology as possible for a month. It was tough and not always a whole lot of fun, but this year I have a friend who will support and do the Challenge with me: Kanra Khan from The Lunar Descent! Together we'll try to get through October without using the usual ginormous amount of electrity.

• College has the highest priority! Using my laptop to work on and hand in an online assignment is totally allowed.
• Pointless checking of Facebook and Twitter feeds is allowed once a day, no more.
• No radio.
• Cell phone dead? Charge it in the weekends.
• Pablo (my tv) can't be on for two hours a day: half an hour a day and Catfish on Sundays is enough for this month.
• Internet time is limited to 30 minutes a day.

For a girl who usually spends every waking minute online, this is going to be pretty rough. I'm glad to have Kanra on my side this time and of course I hope to see you all stop by along the way too!

What will happen to the blog?
Don't worry, I won't totally disappear for a month. I usually write my posts by hand before I write them on blogger, so I should be able to keep things running within those 30 minutes I have each day. Apart from that, I will also write an update on the Low Battery Challenge at the end of each week .
Stay tuned for more news, check my daily Twitter update and don't forget to support Kanra and me as much as you can (digital hugs are accepted at all times!).

Stay Awesome!

sarcasm, nor my love for The Big Bang Theory...

On my first day of college, one of the sophomores gave me a piece of advice: "Always remember, when you're teaching you're not Envy. You're Ms. Fisher and that's totally different."
At first I was skeptical about that, but after a year of studying German to become a high school teacher, I understand that there's a big difference between Envy and Ms. Fisher. When I'm at school as a teacher, I can't be sarcastic or impatient. Believe me, that's one of the most difficult parts of being a teacher. Because the questions these kids asked on my first day as Ms. Fisher at the local high school, were sometimes simply unbelievable.

I am sorry but it's true. (source)

"Ms. Brave, why is that lady in our classroom?"
What I wanted to say: "'That lady' can hear you just fine and 'that lady' can answer that question too. I'm just doing an internship, no need to go crazy."

At the end of the day an 8th grade class came in. For some reason my presence caused them to freak out. Okay, maybe it's a little scary when a random girl is suddenly standing in the back of your classroom for no apparent reason, but is it really necessary to talk about her as if she isn't there? Well, 8th grade logic teaches us that it's totally necessary. Instead of just asking me what I was doing there, the class swarmed around my internship coach, bombarding her with that one question over and over again: 'Who is that?!'

What I did say: "Hi, I'm Ms. Fisher. I'm doing an internship here."


"Ms. Fisher, do you speak German?"
What I wanted to say: "No. No, I don't speak German. That's why I am here: to teach you German even though I myself can't even ask what time it is in this language."

As soon as the class was more or less calm, they started asking a whole lot of questions about me. One of them was, and I'm not kidding, the very important question: do you speak German? I wonder why these kids even asked that question. Why would I want to teach a language that I don't speak? There is absolutely no logic to find in this train of thought. At first I hoped they'd let it go if I answered another question first, but no. 'Do you, Ms. Fisher? Can you say something?' And thus I was forced to answer the most pointless question of all. Of course I answered in German, just to prove the point of the pointlessness of their question.

What I did say: "Wie bitte? Entschuldigung, aber das verstehe ich nicht"
(Translation: 'Excuse me, what? Sorry, but I don't understand that')


"Ms. Fisher, did you know that Ms. Higgins' first name is Tanya?"
What I wanted to say: "Hmm, I just came out of the teachers' lounge with Ms. Higgins. I've been talking to her for half an hour. I had no idea she even had a first name."

I remember those lessons when everyone was swapping teachers' first names like they were Pokémon cards. Usually it was in art class. I'd sit there and tell my friend how I discovered our biology teacher's name and her eyes would go wide. When you're in that class, you don't think of teachers as persons with a first name and a life (a life? Yes, teachers have a life, believe it or not).
At some point during the class, when grammar wasn't interesting to them anymore, some of the kids tried getting my attention again by saying random stuff. And let's be honest, what's more interesting to tell the new intern than the art teacher's first name? It doesn't matter that she probably already knows this, this valuable piece of information has to be shared with the world!

What I did say: "Yes, I knew that."


"Ms. Fisher... are you serious?"
What I wanted to say: "Sorry, that was the sarcasm speaking. I guess I am going to need a sarcasm sign for you."

At some point, I couldn't help it anymore. There was so much sarcasm waiting to be used, I just had to use some of it when the 8th graders asked me why I'd chosen German. The answer is actually a very complicated story about job perspectives, college curriculum, personal challenges and my perfect Californian accent, but I didn't want to bore my soon-to-be students with all that. So before I knew it, I'd sarcastically blurted out: 'I chose German because there weren't any places left for the English course.' The sarcasm was not detected by any of the 8th graders. I am so going to need a sarcasm sign for these kids.

What I did say: "No, I was kidding. I chose German because I love the language and because German food is awesome."


After 50 minutes, the bell rang. The kids walked out of the classroom and I? I burst out laughing. Right now I'm making fun of it, but this post right here is actually why I love being a teacher. Kids ask the funniest and most obvious things in class, without realizing it. And while part of me, which is sadly the part that controls my mouth, responds with sarcasm, a far bigger part of me writes all these things down and looks back on them with a smile. Being a teacher isn't easy, but it sure is great.

Stay Awesome!

I've got a very pretty profile picture on Facebook. Would you like to see it? Oh, who am I kidding, I'm going to show it to you anyway, even if you don't want to.
This picture was taken in Peru, on the island Taquile in the middle of Lake Titicaca. I was totally in love with this picture. It had everything: a baffling background, great larger-than-life colors and me with my awesome sunglasses, a good hair day and normal clothes. It was perfect. Was: past tense. At the moment I have two problems with this picture:
1) It's over a year old and I like to believe I look a little different now (I probably don't, but a girl can hope...)
2) You can barely see it's me in the picture.
So I went looking for a new profile picture - and that's where the trouble began...

The thing is: no one ever takes pictures of me. Unless one of my classmates decides to take a group selfie, but when that happens I'm usually that one strand of hair in the lower left corner. Not an option.
The only other time when people take pictures of me is when I'm on vacation with my parents. But looking at the few pictures they took of me this summer, this seems to be the only one that's more or less suitable as a profile picture.
It looks okay, even though it's yet another picture in which I'm barely visible. Background is beautiful. My hair looks normal. But that shirt... It's too small around my shoulders. It makes me look like a failed body builder. And those shoes... That's the ugliest pair of shoes I have, and I have a lot of shoes. This picture can't be my profile picture now that I've noticed the shoes and how ridiculous my shirt makes me look. No. Just no.

Maybe I should try, just once, to take a selfie. Last time I did that was in Peru too and it was all shaky and blurry. But I could give it another shot. You never know...
Oh God no! No! What was I thinking? Was I even thinking?! This is not happening, no freaking way.

Back to the drawing board... What other options do I have? I have a bunch of pictures from that party I went to last year. There was one I liked a lot. Maybe I'll use this one.
Yes, this one is awesome. Normal clothes, hair doesn't look weird, not to much focus on my pimply face. And I look so happy. This picture is great. I'll just... not use it. The girl with the butterfly thing on her head has already used it as her profile picture and I don't want to be weird...

Oh well, I'll just stick with the old one. After all, why would I fix something that isn't broken?
Stay Awesome!

On my first day of internship my new coach gave me a tour of the school where I'd soon be teaching German. It was more of an exploration: the school had just moved into a new building. The old one, where I'd graduated only a year ago, would be demolished soon. It was my old school in a new jacket: the building was different, the teachers were the same. Most of them recognized me and came up to me for a chat. In a way, it felt like coming home. I felt confident, happy and strong - until I rounded a corner and saw her. My chemistry teacher from 9th grade. She smiled and waved, but I saw a hint of worry and fear in her eyes. Suddenly I wasn't the nineteen-year-old intern anymore; I was fourteen years old, wearing an oversized lab coat and about to screw up big time.

Way back in the distant past of 2011
'So what are we going to do first?' I asked while trying to free my hands from the white lab coat sleeves that were way too long. The white lab coats were supposed to be the smallest, but I was still drowning in fabric every time I wore one.
Lars and Tim, my lab partners who were both well over 6ft tall, looked down at me, but said nothing. Summer vacation was about to start, yet this was our first chemistry experiment as lab partners. My previous lab partners always made me do the entire experiment all by myself and when the time came to write a report, they made a list of the supplies we'd used and added that, along with their names, to my report. I was so happy that my teacher had allowed me to become lab partners with my friends Lars and Tim at this time of the year. The two guys were a bit more skeptical about the skills I could bring to their team.
'Can you set this stuff up?' Lars asked. Lars was the one who did almost all the talking. Tim barely spoke when I was around, he had a bit of a problem talking to people.
'Sure,' I said. 'Can I do the entire experiment? That way you can observe and explain me all the sciency stuff I don't understand.'
Lars raised his eyebrows. 'You sure you can do the entire experiment?'
'Of course. When Stacey and Elaine were my lab partners I always had to do the entire experiment by myself.'
Lars and Tim still weren't convinced of my skills in the science lab, but as I turned the burner on without batting an eye, they finally started to have a bit of confidence in me.
'There isn't much that can go wrong with this experiment,' Lars told me. 'We put sugar in a test tube, hold it close to the flame and wait till it caramelizes. Then we describe the process and that's it.'
'Great.' I put the sugar in a test tube. 'But how am I supposed to hold it to the flame without burning my fingers off?'
Tim pushed and extremely long clothes peg across the table. 'Hold it with this.'
'Okay.' So that's what I did. For five minutes I held the little glass tube full of sugar close to the flame and stared at it. I had a thing with fire. I could stare at it for hours and was so excited every time we got to work with it in chemistry class. I was still hoping we'd get the chance to blow something up, but things never reached that level of awesomeness.
'Nothing's happening.'
I tore my gaze away from the small flame and the still very white sugar. Lars was right. Nothing was happening. 'What am I supposed to do?' I asked.
'Hold it closer to the flame. Or in it,' Lars suggested.
'Like this?' I held the tube a little closer to the flame, the bottom of the tube just above the top of the fire.
'No, closer. I think we have to hold the whole tube into the flame, then move it.'
'Sure.' The tube was now almost all the way into the flame. The sugar turned brown and bubbled. 'It's working!'
'Envy.'
'Look, Lars, it's caramel and - crap!' In my excitement I hadn't noticed that the wooden clothes peg had caught fire. The caramelizing sugar was about to bubble out of the tube. I held the tube and burning peg away form the fire. 'What now? What do I do?!' Panic took over. I started waving the clothes peg, but that only made things worse.
'Damn it, Envy!,' Lars bellowed. 'Stop waving the damn thing!'
'But what am I supposed to do with it?' I yelled, still waving the burning peg. The way too long sleeves of my lab coat grazed the fire and almost joined the bonfire that used to be a clothes peg.
'Put it down!'
So I did, without realizing that this idea was even worse than waving the miniature torch. I put the peg on the table, where it almost set fire to the wooden board that was there to protect the table's surface from sticky sugar spills. Tim's notes almost fell victim too, but I picked the peg up just in time.
'What do I do now? WHAT DO I DO?!' I kept repeating those words until Lars snatched the burning clothes peg from my fingers. He walked to the nearest basin, threw it in there and turned the faucet on. 'That's what we do with it!' he said. He turned around and gave me the angriest look I'd ever seen on his face. 'God, Envy. Why did you put it in the fire? Damn it! You're not playing with fire ever again!'

Almost five years later I could still hear Lars yell, I could still feel the heat of the burning clothes peg in my hand. Apparently I wasn't the only one who remembered that day.
My head turned bright red as I approached my old chemistry teacher. 'Hi, ms. Tulumen,' I said in a weird, high pitched voice that made me sound like a nervous squirrel.
'Hi Envy!,' she said.
I told myself to be confident. After all, that one incident was years ago. No need to feel ashamed, right? I could start a normal conversation, like a normal nineteen-year-old would do. I gathered all my courage, took a deep breath - and squeaked: 'Bye!'
Then I quickly walked away, nineteen on the outside, fourteen and ashamed on the inside...

Stay Awesome!

Tomorrow is my first day of sophomore year. My mind is ready, my room - not so much... I still haven't unpacked the bag I took with me on vacation, my birthday presents are still in a heap on my desk and the floor is littered with checklists and old grammar exercises from last year.
I decided to clean the mess up (mostly so I could start creating a new mess with exciting sophomore stuff tomorrow), but I haven't done much yet. I picked up the first stack of papers, looked at them and found a note. Not just any note, but the little letter I wrote about a month ago to a guy I saw on the campground. After three days of weirdness, I'd had enough and decided to write a letter. A month later, the letter isn't going to make any difference anymore. I might as well share my silly teenage girl moment with you!
Dear random guy I saw on the campground,

Is there food stuck between my teeth? Is the skirt of my dress caught in my underwear? Did one of the zits on my face turn that alarming shade of yellow that means it's about to burst? What is it?
And what was it yesterday? Was I about to lose my shorts while swimming in the lake? Was my hair sticking out at weird angles? Were my glasses askew?
And the day before yesterday, when you first saw me while I was playing table tennis in the near darkness? Am I so pale that I looked like a ghost? Could you see my bra through my white top? Was I talking embarrassingly loud? Seriously, what was it?

I've caught you staring at me quite a few times now. I like getting some attention from guys my age, but you're making me nervous. You make me feel like something about me is just slightly wrong. Not very wrong, but just a little less good than it's supposed to be...
Maybe you're just staring at me because I'm ugly. You wouldn't be the first to do that. It would also explain why you start talking to those fifteen-year-old Barbie wannabes every time I catch you staring at me. But I refuse to believe that. A small voice in my mind suggested that and I promised myself not to listen to that voice anymore. If you don't think I'm ugly and there's no food stuck between my teeth or anything... Could that mean...?
Are you interested in me? Is that why you're looking at me? In that case you should know that I'm not going to be the first of us to say something. Last time I liked someone and put effort into getting to know him, he stomped on my heart. I don't want to take that risk for someone who might only be looking at me because my face looks weird when I play table tennis...

Quite frankly, I hope you say 'hi' tomorrow. I don't know why you're staring like that, but I think you're a nice guy. I can be pretty nice too. So don't be afraid and come over to say 'hi' tomorrow. I promise I'll answer you. 

See you tomorrow!
Envy

Of course I never gave him this letter. It ended up under the enormous pile of clothes in my tent, then almost got into the washing machine when we got home.
And the guy? Well, the next day he stared at me, but didn't say anything. I decided to start a conversation the next day. But when I walked to his tent, the place was empty, the tent gone, the guy and his family on their way back to Holland. Lesson learned: next time I'll say 'hi' straight away.

Stay Awesome!

'Excited?'
I didn't even answer my mom's question. It was Monday morning, I had two weeks of summer vacation left, but here I was, getting ready for my first internship assignment of my sophomore year. It was going to be one big surprise, because the email with instructions only said: 'Be there at 9'
With my experiences from last year's internship still fresh in my mind, I couldn't help but be nervous and excited. I couldn't understand how my mother hadn't noticed that yet: I had packed my bag three days before and even laid out my clothes for that day so I wouldn't panick about them in the morning.
'Envy? Excited?' My mom doesn't give up easily. 'Nervous?'
'Yeah,' I said, 'both.'

When I decided to become a teacher, I started dreaming about teaching at my old high school. This year that dream will come true - more or less. I landed an internship and soon I will start teaching German on Monday's while going to classes for the rest of the week.
I doubted a little about doing this internship. My previous internship coach basically told me I sucked, but she was the kind of person that went to a strip club with the other intern and stalked us on Facebook. So I set my doubts aside and on the morning of the 24th, I left my Batman shirt at home and went to my internship school dressed up as a responsible adult. One problem: as I arrived at the school, I still had no idea what I was supposed to do there. Heck, I didn't even know where the front door was!
My old high school had moved to a new building and lucky for me, one of my old teachers saw me stare at the walls like that would make a door appear out of nowhere. She showed me the door, then disappeared. I was pretty much on my own - and that's why I ended up ruining the principal's speech and photobombing the anual staff picture.

There's one things you need to know about my internship school: it has a garage, but for bicycles. It looks creepy and it's even worse when you don't know where the exit is. By the time I found it, I quickly walked through the doors and found myself right in front of every teacher of the school, who were all listening to the principal's "Welcome Back!!!" speech, which I'd unknowingly interrupted by showing up right next to the principal. I was off to a great start.
The principal decided to ignore me and one of my old teachers made room for me to sit. No one seemed to mind, a lot of the teachers were only looking at me because they still recognized me (mostly because I was "that girl who's always reading Harry Potter" and in one case because I was "the girl who almost set the science lab on fire with a clothes peg"). For a while I thought I was out of trouble. Then a photographer showed up. No matter how I tried not to be part of the staff picture, I ended up being clearly visible on front row. Never in my whole life have I been so happy to have left my Batman shirt at home.

I spent the rest of the day talking to my soon-to-be coaches, who only thought it was great that I was part of the staff picture. They even went a step further and brought me back to the photographer to get another picture taken. I tried to protest, but "you're part of the team now!"
And in that moment, when I heard them call me a part of their team, I could've cried tears of happiness. All those men and women that I respected when I was still an annoying fangirl with a loud shrill voice now wanted me to be part of their team, they wanted me to be successful in this career path. Words can't explain how great that feels. So when they offered me to start internship earlier and go on a fieldtrip to Germany with them, I could only say 'yes'.
I'm excited to start sophomore year, even more excited to start my second internship. I'll hope to see you stop by along the road, just like last year with The College Experience Posts!

Stay Awesome!

#1: "Nice weather today"
Talking about the weather is something everyone does on an almost daily basis, but on the campground this overused topic reaches a new level of dullness. When the weather is good, people just say "nice weather" and confirm it a few times, even though a simple "yes it is" would have sufficed.
When the weather is bad, people ask each other about the weather forecast and, if no one has heard or read a forecast, they ask what the other person thinks the weather is going to be like. Since no one is a professional meteorologist, this conversation is completely pointless.
There's a third scenario for this conversation that we only see on cold days. My least favorite weather-related campground conversation goes like this:
"It was cold tonight, wasn't it?"
"Oh yes, very cold."
"Do you think those people in that tent were cold too?"
"Definitely! I think even those people in that caravan were cold!"
Can it get any more boring? I don't think so...

#2: "What kind of tent is that?"
Tents on campgrounds are to men what cars are to them in every day life: the most interesting there the universe has ever seen. Shape and color are important, but don't forget about size, amount of windows, 'bedrooms' and other features, like sunroofs and the way you can attach those to the tent. Walking around the campground and commenting on other people's tents is mandatory: "I think that one isn't as high as ours, but it does have more storage space!"
Great conversation...

#3: "Do you think that chair is comfortable?"
My dad loves talking tents, my mom prefers chairs. Put a few women together on a campground and soon they'll talk about how comfortable their chairs are. Color can be a real dealbreaker, but comfort wills always be the most important thing when it comes to chairs. Then there's also the amount of storage space the chair takes up: chairs shouldn't be too big, or the trunk of your car is filled with chairs instead of useful stuff like a tent. Oh, and let's not forget about the price!
"Those chairs look comfortable, but they're butt-ugly and probably very expensive too."
I really needed this piece of information in my life...

#4: "Where's the toilet paper?"

Fancy toilet paper for the win!

As I mentioned in my early days of blogging, some campgrounds don't provide toilet paper (read my rant about pink toilet paper here). There's not really a problem as long as you buy normal-looking toilet paper, but fact is that toilet paper has the tendency to get lost. Heated discussions arise: who was the last to see it? Who was the last to use it? Could it be in the car? Did someone leave it on the toilet?
These discussions got even more interesting when my parents came back from the supermarket with normal toilet paper as well as toilet paper with animal print and dragon print.
"I can't find the fancy animal toilet paper!"
Yeah, the print on your toilet paper really makes a difference...

#5: "There's a bee/wasp/mosquito in my tent!"
I'll admit that I've had this conversation at least once a day with my parents. For some reason every flying insect in the area decided to fly into our tent and eventually die there. After a week the back half of our tent looked like an insect graveyard. Still, it was worse when those bugs were still alive. Especially after a dying wasp decided to sting both me and my dad, I panicked every time a wasp flew in.
"MOM! There's a WASP in the tent and it won't go AWAY!!!"
Great thining, yelling will make it go away...

You see, campground conversation isn't exactly exciting. I tried to fight it every day of my four weeks in Germany and France. I failed. Nothing can save you from the dullness of campground conversation. It feels good to be back home, where I can spend my time talking about useful things, like peeling potatoes, Ant-Man and the big "does he like me or not" discussion.

Stay Awesome!