The First Day of December

December 1^st, 2009

First off, I cannot believe how quickly the days, weeks, and months are flying by.  Even the days seem to zoom past in a second, but when I look back it seems like much more time has passed than actually has because each day is jam packed with work, school, friends, amazing conversations, projects, dreams, goals, and most of all Adventures.

                This past week has been especially adventurous, because first I was in northern Bosnia and Serbia with Milica and Shaked, as I said before and now I am finishing my third day in the Open European Debate competition.  I didn’t believe that I could say this, but each day here is even longer than days back at school, because there are no breaks.  Most of the day we are either debating or preparing for the debate, and during the mornings and evenings we are still thinking about the motions.

                Each morning I am waking up at six o’clock to arrive at school by seven, because that is when classes for my host sister Oana start.  I attended German classes this morning, and ironically they were debating in class – about whether to extend the school day, because classes end a little after noon. 

Each morning there have been organized activities for the debaters to do, as well as prepare for the two upcoming debates in the afternoon.  This morning was a lot of fun for me, because a group of ten or so people were invited to go to a local bakery and learn how to make and bake pretzels.  So, we watched the bakers operate all the fancy equipment that mix and cut the dough into equal pieces, and then we rolled and twisted the balls of dough into pretzels!  Then we coated them with butter and salt crystals with another machine, and loaded them into the huge ovens to bake for only 12 minutes before they popped out hot, delicious, and golden brown.  Yummy!

Yesterday morning, we attended the famous Christmas market in the center of Stuttgart.  It is a beautiful place because the huge square in the center of the city is filled with booths selling gifts, ornaments, food, and a large fresh vegetable market with all sorts of oddities.  I felt my Christmas spirit begin to glow, and to my dear family and friends in Portland, I cannot wait to decorate the Christmas tree with you, bake cookies, make gingerbread houses, spend time with family, go adventuring, spend time relaxing with friends, eat our traditional seafood Christmas dinner, and find a special way to show my loved ones that I care.  In Mostar, the Christmas spirit isn’t as evident because half of the population of Mostar is Islamic and they do not celebrate Christmas.  But, still it is around the corner, there is a lot to happen in the next twenty days before I finally arrive home.  And I am focusing on living in the moment, because I really do cherish each moment because I am so thankful and always curious about something new.

Then the rest of the day, until eight o’cock tonight was consumed with debating, first preparation for the debates, and then the actual debating.  The two motions for today were:

THBT = This house believes that….

THBT…ferocious animals should not be kept as domestic pets.  (Opposition)

THBT…profit-making dominates healthcare.  (Proposition)          

The great news is that all three of us, Ingrid, Marius, and I learned from our mistakes yesterday, and really improved our speeches for today.  And we won BOTH debates!

Once again, tomorrow we have two more debates, the first one is an impromptu debate, so we receive the motion one hour before to prepare, and the second motion is THBT people are too quick to applaud Obama.  So tonight I need to collect all the information together and write the outline of the debate.

Basic format, for each team there are three speakers, each speech is eight minutes, and then the 4^th speech is a reply speech of only four minutes.  My forte is the third speech because it provides the majority of the rebuttal – and I get to be fiery and passionate and prove that opposition points are completely wrong.  Dad, I completely attribute my great debate skills to you.  Our debates throughout my life made me prepared for even the hardest most experienced opponents.  You would do very well, of this I have no doubt.

This evening, after returning home I ate a delicious Romanian meal prepared by my house mom.  Then with Oana’s German speaking skills we called my distant relative Dieter (my Grandpa’s 1^st cousin?) who lives in Stuttgart, to say hello and see if he wanted to meet.  It worked out very well, and he is planning to come to my host families home tomorrow evening after I am done debating!  I really hope that it goes well, I’m very excited to meet him.  Also, I hope to get in contact with my Grandmother’s best childhood friend, who also lives here.

So, big day for tomorrow – I need a little bit of rest J

Good Night and the updates will continue.

Yours,

Hilary Anna