(A)way to the World: Aaaaaaand I'm no longer in 9th grade

So the school finally gave me my new class schedule yesterday!

I'm a little disappointed that it took so long (Bureaucracy), and I still have 3 periods a week in the 9th grade (Bureaucracy), but I'm just going to look on the bright side and be glad that on Monday I'll start going to more challenging classes with people my age. I didn't get to pick the classes, that's not really a thing here, but the School Director nicely allowed me to write down which classes I was interested in and tried to fit a schedule together.

Don't get me wrong, I'm now friends with a good number of people in my old class, they were incredibly friendly and helpful to me and I'll miss them, BUT I think everyone can imagine that It was slowly starting to get very boring/weird being in a class of 14/15 year olds who's time is scheduled by their parents and in Math are learning
xaxb=xa+b

I'm not sure right now what grade I'm in, but I have classes both in 11th and 12 grade here's a list:
-3 "Leistungskurse" --> Intensive Studies course, so just more in depth and more classes per week
-Geschichte (History)
-Mathe (figure it out yourself)
- Englisch (6 periods a week, 3 different classes, 2 different teachers, WHAT? But I think I'll be able to help out a lot
which is nice, we'll see how that all works out, It's not like I'll do the homework)
-Geography (once in upper class and once in 9th)
-German level 1, I feel like that will be with the slacker kids, and I had this teacher once as a sub and I was really scared of her.
-Biology
-Music
-Art
-Informatik (computer science) and Profil Naturwissenschaft: Both are with the same teacher who's really great. Every year
people get to pick a Profil (Art or Science) where they rotate every month to a different subcategory (Ex photography to
sculpture, or Communications to Robotics). What I'm doing I THINK is just going along with Herr Franz and learn
computer programming by taking all the Informatik Profil rotations. I did my first german presentation in my Profil class on Bitcoin, click to see that I'm not lying. So hopefully I'll get some experience with C++ and HTML and what have you by the end of year, I'm already learning a language, why not two more?

Classes that most people take here that I'm not:
-Spanish level 4,000 , I just can't catch up with them and It'd be just too hard, I wouldn't be able to do anything
-Sports, woot woot
-Physics, Chemistry, I could deal with it, but I think i'm taking enough classes as it it.

So I've done a lot since I last posted, It would get a bit long-winded to , so I'll just post some interesting photos I've taken from them:

So two weekends ago I was really bored, so I hiked 7 miles through the Tharandter Forest, I go jogging there like 3 times per week and I've enjoyed exploring it. Here's a unique rock outcropping, I could really picture all the colorful history in this forest going back hundreds of years when it used to be a hunting reserve for Barons. There are still hunting-stands all over the place, pretty sure there are still wild boars here. Below is a view from the town Landberg "Landmountain". I could see really far, even the Dresden TV tower, which is on the other side of Dresden, couldn't see the city because it's down in the Elbe river valley.
(click it for the full pic)

Cool decorations at a late night event at a high ropes course

My host mom, host cousin and I drove 30 minutes to the Czech Rep. to get gas because it's way cheaper.

Yesterday I went with another Exchange Student (Noah, from NY state with Rotary) and a friend from school to walk around Dresden. We went to this store "Globetrotter" which was just awesome! Something like a Gander mountain and Dicks Sporting goods that carries things from REI. They had a indoor Diagonal 3 Story Climbing Wall that was free and open (that's where I found this gem of a sign), a pool to test out Canoes and Kayaks, a Rain Room to test Rain Jackets and Tents, and a giant freezer to test out winter jackets.

The Election posters are mostly still up, I saw the one on the left ("Good for big and Small") yesterday in Dresden. He'res an actual photo of him, I was half hoping he'd look exactly like the drawing.