First football practice with ball

Austin, February 28th

Yay! We practiced catching in football class. It was a little cold and windy, but I missed the practice with the ball. We have a new quarterback and I guess it will take some time until we all play as good as last season.

In track was our coach not there. The girls coach timed us but warm up and cool down we had to do by ourselves. So Three of the boys (including myself) led the running warm up, a girl led the stretchings and for the few who stayed for the cooldown -my and three other guys- I led a quick cool down.

I run better than last week, my ankles still hurt a bit, my knees started after the fouth 300m run to hurt, but my hip feels much better.

After track I went to the weight room. Austin, the boy who picks me often up in the morning for the workouts, texted me this morning that his truck doesn't work. Loran brought me to school, but I missed the morning workout.

Gym and movie

Austin, February 27th

Steffen and I went to Gold's gym today. My favourite gym at 1431 didn't let him in, because guests need to be 18 or need a guest pass. But we didn't want to pay for this pass.

So we went to an other gym in Round Rock, they wanted to see an ID of Steffen so they knew that he is 18. He didn't had an ID, but they let him still in. It is weird, some gyms don't ask for an ID, some make you fill out a lot of paperwork and some need just a sign.

We worked out a little and went then to the pool, hot tub and sauna.

Gary invited Steffen for dinner, so we ate at our house and went then to Jessica to watch a movie.

Big Mall

Austin, February 26th

Since Coach Baily don't want me to go to the Track meet today, I had time to go with Steffen and Carolin to Barton Creek Mall. It's much bigger than the Lakeline Mall, where we usually go to.

Caro wanted to meet a friend of hers, Laura, who is a German exchange student in Houston. Her hostbroher had a German Competition in Austin, and so they decided to meet.

We went to some shops. Steffen and i got job offers at Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister. To bad that we are exchange students, I'd love to work there.

I finally bought the christmas gift for Steffen, sweatpants from Abercrombie.

Class ring

Austin, February 25th

I ordered my class ring today. It will be silver with a red stone. One one side is the Vista ridge mascott, and on the other side a little football, a football helmet and winged shoes, that refers that I was a football player and track runner.

Relax

Austin, February 24th

Pretty boring day. The football class was really tiring. And since i was before school in the weight room, and after track practice again, I didn't feel like doing anything but relaxing at home. 

Stop motion project

Austin, February 23rd

We have to create a stop motion video for Photo-Journalism. Matt and I will work together and let gummi bears fight against gummi octopusses.

In football class we had a competition day. My competition team, the swoilders, have never been so successfull. We lost basketball very close, but the relays we absolutely won, we beat the other team in all 5 games. And in 'Rushing ball', a modified version of Ranger ball we won, too.

Track meeting

Austin, February 19th

I spend the whole day in Georgetown at the track meeting. It was sometimes boring, because everything took so much time. But most of the time we had fun.

Actually we planned to be back at school at about six o'clock. We wended up to be there at about eight.

The other runner in my heat, or in the 400m event in general, were really fast. I tripped at the last 50 m and almost fell, so I got unfortunately last in my heat. But at least I didn't get last of the event.

Qualified for first track meet

Austin, February 17th

Today Coach Baily told me, that I qualified for the 400m run at the track meet on saturday. I got some track clothes- a slider (underwear), very short pants, a tank top, a rain jacket and a red bag.

Together with me is Kimbrough and Tristan in the 400m team. Kimbrough is really fast and he looks like he never gets tired.

Class Ring infos

Austin, February 16th

It' wednesday. Rangertime. But not for juniors! We should go to the auditorium to get informations about early college start and CLASS RINGS! I think I'm going to buy one. The ones in gold look pretty nice, or maybe one in silver, with black finishing and a red stone, so I have all three school colors. Since I'm not graduation here, I wont have the year on the ring, but the school mascot maybe, I have to think about it.

The other three don't want to buy one, they say it's gay. but what do I care what they think? I wear a lot more jewlry and asseccoires than they do. A watch and between one and four wristbands.

And a class ring is a really nice souvenier and memory to my year here.

We had a competition day in football class. My team lost all four games of Rangerball. I got hurt in the first game. I caught the ball and run to the endzone, short before I arrived, someone from the other team attacked me harder than he should. Instead of just tipping me, he pushed me hard enough that I slided about 5 yards on the turn. Result: a huge turfburn. Hurts like hell. But that didn't stop me from making a touchdown in the second game. The only game we almost won.

Mail from a College

Austin, February 15th

I got mail from a College today! the Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont invites my to a open door day. I guess i pass on this one, Vermont is a little bit to far away. Although the brochure looks very interesting. As far as i know, am I the only one of us four Germans who got mail from a College, I wonder where they got my adress. Maybe the woman from the Art College in Austin shared it with some colleges.

Valentines Day

Austin, February 14th

It's Valentines day, in my opinion a completely unnecessary 'holiday'.

One of my friends got a pink shirt with a lot of glitter and other decorations. He hates it, but he wears it for his girlfriend. I got a card from a girl in my English class. Actually a donut cupon with heart on the backside, but I will keep it as souvenier.

Paintball

Austin, February 13th

During the last week I called and texted a bunch of people and asked if they want to go paintballing. We ended up with a group of seven people, and we played for about 3 hours. I found out that the staff guy who supervised us goes to high school and knows a German exchange student as well. And guess what, Steffen introduced me to her this morning in church! We could talk him into letting our little group play some 2 vs 2 after the manager already said they want to close the paintball area for today. But hey, we are Germans, this guy knows a German, someone we know, he can let us play a little bit more. Funny how easy we always get what we want.

After paintball, I returned to my own house, my hostparents are back from their cruise.

The Domain

Austin, February 12th

Caronline, Steffen and i went to the Domain today. It's like a neighborhood, manly made of shops and restaurants. But unlike other outside malls, the domain also has living houses.

We spend a lot of time in the Apple store, we looked at their Ipods and Iphones and computer and found out, that a lot of people use the Iphones in the store to log in at facebook, and then forget to log out. Honestly, it's no wonder that so many people get 'hacked' when they don't log out at a public computer!

We met two guys from loveishere.com. They interviewed us about what we think about love. They liked our torys what we (Crazy Germans) did in our short lives so far. It was interesting talking to us, and they were glad to talk to Germans. One of them even tol dus she wants to name her child Berlin, thats the capital of Germany. Terrible name, in my opinion, but if she wants that, I will not stop her.

Goalie warmup

Cedar Park, February 11th

Steffen had his second game today. Since I thought I would have Track practice until five, I planned to go to his game at 5:30 right after practice. Unfortunately I forgot that on fridays Track is in the morning and the weight room in closed after school, so I had nothing to do. I decided to meet Steffen in his locker room, but until I was there, they had to go to the field for warm ups. So I went with them and helped to warm up the goal keeper. I stayed with the team during the game, played sometimes ball boy or talked to the player and coaches. The family of the soccer headcoach came from Germany, so he spoke a little German.

We won this game, 6 to 0!

Power lifting Competition

Cedar Park, February 10th

Back to school! And I spend pretty much the whole day in school.

We came almost to late, because Steffens little hostbrother needed for ever to get ready, and we had to bring his other younger hostbrother to Elementry School first.

After school I had my first power lifting competition. Did I ever mention that I'm in the power lifting team? If not, well as football player I am expected to help at competitions at Vista, and when I have to be there, I thought it's more fun to compete, than just help and watch. So now I'm part of the team.

I sucked. I usually do very good at squats, but at my first try I didn't go deep enough so it didn't count. One of my third trys wasted. And in bench pressing I started with a to low weight. I was at 125 pounds at my second try and wated up to 160 for the last. But my limit is at bout 150/155 lbs and I wasn't able to lift so much. At least I raised my limit in power clean by 5 pounds!

So I didn't win a medal, but I'm still pround of my power clean. 

Freezing cold day

Cedar park, February 9th

It's the last day of the february convention break. Actually Steffen and I wanted to go to the Uinversity of Texas to see the campus. Unfortunately he had soccer practice, because of the lost game yesterday. And Carolin, who was thinking about going with us to the UT, wasn't allowed, because of the weather. It was apparently to cold. But going alone is boring, and it was really a little cold outside, so it wouldn't be fun.

So I slept until Steffen's soccer practice ended and then He, Daniel Brandon -a guy from the soccer team- and I went to Whataburger for dinner.

Soccer game

Cedar Park, February 8th

Steffen has his first season soccer game today, so we had to leave South Padre this morning and drive back to Steffens house in Cedar Park. I watched his game, it was pretty good, but some how Vista Ridge managed it, to lose 3 to 4. The strong wind stopped the ball short before the goal and mad a tie in the last minute impossible. Well, it's like our first football game, we played good, but in the last half our opponent beat us.

Hilton Garden Inn

South Padre Island, January 7th

We changed hotels, we are not in the La Quinta. It's a few dollars cheaper and the rooms are just... crap.

The only thing that is better, compared to the last hotel, is that we have much more TV channels.

Steffen, Daniel and I sped the day driving around and swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, running to the pool and warm then up in the hot tub.

Sometimes very late tonight, we decided to check out the pool of the Hilton Hotel next to our hotel. So we went to the beach and looked for the entrance to the Hilton backyard. It's pretty nice, the pool is huge, but cold. Even the hot tub is colder than in our hotel.  

SUPER BOWL! GO STEELERS!

South Padre Island, February 6th

SuperBowl Sunday

We got up very late, and we left even later to find a nice sportsbar for the SuperBowl. Until we found one we liked, without hundrets of (smoking) people, they played already 10 minutes.

We had dinner and wathced the game at Big Boys. Steffen and Daniel were the loudest fans of the Greenbay Packers. Some of the Steelers fans got a bit angry because of them. I was the loudest Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Even the restaurant manager recognized us. Not a bad thing, he came to us and asked if we want to take part in their Chicken Wing Eating Contest. I'm not a big fan of chicken, but I love free food. Out of the 14 wings and legs we had to eat, we three ate just 4 per person, then the first two guys had already eaten all of their wings. But we could keep the rest of our wings. 10 wings for free! And they were really good. Very spicy, and when we got them extremely hot!

Then we watched the second half of the game. It was exciting, but unfortunately the Steelers lost 25 to 31.

They got a good chance of making one more touchdown, together with an PAT they would have won. But the ball got intercepted at their last try, so the Packers won. They were just better, especially in the first half.

When we came back to the hotel we still had our wings and a lot of soda in our room. So we went with all that stuff to the hot tub and spend there the next hours. We left long after the pool was actually closed, but the guy who tried to throw us out yesterday, didn't even try today. 

VACATION!

South Padre Island, January 5th

Loran and Gary go to their cruise today, so I will stay at Steffen's until next sunday. Since we have no school until Thursday, Steffen, Daniel and I decided to go on vacation. Steffen and i aren't allowed to travel without an adult, so we had to take Steffens hostfamily with us.

We went to South Padre Island at the Gulf of Mexico. We stay at a Holiday Inn. the room is okay, but we won't spend much time in it.

In the evening we went to the beach, but the water was to cold to swim, so we bought some soda and chips and chilled at the hot tub of the hotel. Actually we spend most of the day at the hot tub. Someone told us we had to leave, but he didn't care much that we stayed even after he told it us a second time. 

We watched Lucha Libre (mexican show restling) until about 4 a.m. I guess.

No school

Austin, February 4th

I woke up early to see online, if we have school. Nope, we have almost an inch snow, to much for the Texans to go to school. It wasn't very cold outside. I went in pajamas outside to 'ski' in the driveway.

Tonight I went with Steffen, Jessi and Melina, a German exchange student who lives somewhere downtown Austin, to a Rave in sixth street. The first DJ sucked, we went outside again and walked aroud at sixth street. When we came back a band started, they were okay, but really good was just the last DJ. Unfortunately we had to leave already at about 1230, so we didn't hear much of him.

But it was still a nice night.

Freezing cold

Austin, February 3rd

Apparently it's freezing outside, so school was two hour delayed. Tomorrow the school might even stay closed, we have a 80 something % possibility of snow.

It's dark inside

Austin, February 2nd

It was Signing Day. That means a lot of very good Ranger athlets signed their letters with their future Colleges. And of course the football team was expected to be there. On the way to school Loran and I recognized, that the traffic lights didn't work. Loran was concerned that the school wouldn't have electicity either. And really, we waited about 15 minutes in Study Hall without light. Then finally we could start with the sign ups and taking photos and all that stuff. We needed longer than planned, and of course we started later, so we came to late to class. Just a little bit, and my class started later, too, so I hardly missed something. 

Has Black and Yellow anything to do with the Steelers?

Austin, February 1st

Second day of max out in football. My power clean is a whole lot better than last time. More than my own weight!

I found something important out today. Like most people, and prett much every American knows, is on Sunday the SuperBowl! The Pittsburgh Steelers play against the Green Bay Packers.

In the radio they play all the time the song 'Black and Yellow' and today came me the thought, this song came out, short before the SuperBowl, and the title are the colors of the Steelers, is it possible that the song has something to do with the Steelers?

So I wrote a text message to the only person from who I know, that she is Steelers fan and asked her. And the respond was: 'The song has everything to do with the Steelers!'