I swallow a lot when the pressure is up and the feeling I've got is I'm not gonna stop

Happy New Year to all of you guys! 

I hope you had a great time celebrating. 2008 was ok, the first half of it was amazing and I hope 2009 is going to be even better. I have a good feeling about that. I even have some goals for 2009 and I might even be able to achieve them because it's more or less up to me:

• Surf Camp! In my summer holidays. I'm desperate to be out in the water again and I already know where to go, France! That's the cheapest place to go to for surfing I guess. Anyone wanna join me? I don't want to go alone ;-) 
• Continue (and improve my) skating! I think there's another skate course taking place this month. First, I should go the the skate hall and practise what I've learned last time though.
• Improve my grades! My grades weren't bad at all. Still, I know I can do better. And I want to have the prove, on paper =P
• Enjoy life - cheesy, I know. 

2008 was a year of extreme situations.

It started out with a problem which made it really hard for me to be so far away from my family, but it was solved soon.

Right after that I went to surf camp which was one of the best events in my life (so far) and especially in 2008. 

I met the most amazing people there, and I couldn't have learned more about surfing and about myself in one week. This camp kind of opened new doors for me. 

After that I was stoked, so I went to the beach with friends pretty often, trying to make them surf, too, and it worked, all the time. Playa Jacó was always a blast. Good surf, great weather, funny and special people. More about them later. Oh, I love and miss the beach so much.

In May, I went to Panama City. The canal was impressing! Cheap clothes, huge malls, mini-Manhattan-skyline.

My time in Costa Rica was going to end and was at its best at its best at the same time. We had school president's elections, a big thing, we watched the European Championship all together and my class and I even skipped lessons to watch Germany play and, gosh, how I had to suffer when we lost against Croacia, everyone was like: "Hey, she's from Germany, let's get on her nerves!" After the match I went to classes and the whole school knew that I was german and that Germany lost and I didn't even care that much but they were all shouting and pointing at me as if it were a big deal. I did have some supporters, haha. I also went on vacation with my host fam, we visited several beaches, la casona, too, we had an amazing time. My class made a farewell party for me, Germany beat Portugal meanwhile and I got back at them all ;-)

My host sisters made another surprise party for me at home with our closest friends. It was a girls' sleepover and we had so much fun. 

I got back at the end of june, summer holidays were about to start. I was so happy to see all of my friends and family again, it was overwhelming and confusing to be back and after a few days I had a little nervous breakdown but that was only for a few hours =)

At the end of summer holidays I went to Italy for two weeks with a friend of mine. We had big shopping tours in Firence, spent one day in Milano, refreshed our tan on sunny island Elba and recovered all the talking we didn't have for one year :-P

School started again and I was psyched, it was all new and different but soon I got really stressed and didn't enjoy life at all. I hardly had a life. My anti-stress-drug was playing Rugby, that helped a lot.

In November we moved from our old house to an apartment which I love, I really like my new room much better than my old one.

I also met really great people this year:

• I met this Hawaiian guy, Lorenzo (Ok, people can't choose their names ;-P), who works at a surf shop in Jacó Beach and he always took me and my friends to the other end of the beach with his car when he had students to teach and he gave us water and pineapple and surfer-sunscreen and told us all about surfing in Jacó and the places around. The best was his accent, we spoke english because his spanish wasn't that good. I'm still asking myself one thing: Why the heck would he move from (surfers' paradise) Hawaii to Costa Rica as a surfer? Me and my friend came up with that question when we were back from the beach and we never went back afterwards so I never had the chance to ask him. When I get back I'll ask him - He will still be there, for sure.
• Jason, an American guy who my friend and I met In Jacó at the cabinas where we stayed. On this trip, we stayed there for 5 days and he did, too, and since you can't really go out in Jacó at night because it can get dangerous, we often stayed at the cabinas, chilled in hammocks and rockers and talked about all different kinds of stuff. We always had a lot of people to join us, but they were always staying for one or two nights. My friend, Jason and I were always there (during these 5 days) and Jason made everybody laugh and talk - he has a talent for that. He's from Florida but lives in Panama City due to his work. He has a little daughter back in Florida and he teaches her spanish (he has this funny american-panamanian accent), and he was on a 1-week-surf vacation in Costa Rica. On the same trip, we also met a german couple, an old American man who had been a missionaire until he and his wife got divorced, two girls from New York, 2 guys from Vancouver, Canada, one girl from Switzerland and one guy from Colorado, USA. On the last evening we went out all together to eat something at a restaurant. One Austrian guy made us fake tatoos on the wrist (I got a lizard). He had learned that in Guatemala from an Indio tribe, they use semen from a tree to make the tatoos. They vanish after 10 days. That trip was fun.
  
• My next trip to Jacó, with another friend of mine, was just as great, we met german people, american people, canadian people, australian people. We went to see a surf contest with them at a beach near by. A german woman, hadn't been in Germany for years because she travelled the whole world: Asia, worked in China and India, worked in Uganda, worked in Dublin, travelled Latin America. She wanted to work in Chile or Argentina and go to Australia after that. One guy, Erik, was from the USA but lives in Puerto Rico and works there as a surf instructor. My friend and I were happy to hear that, but he told us he didn't want to teach anybody in Jacó because he has to do that 7 days a week in Puerto Rico and wanted to enjoy surfing himself in Costa Rica. But when he heard that I got so much into surfing he was trying to talk me into buying a board inmediately. He explained me every single board in a catalogue and marked the ones that could be mine, in categories: "If you buy it an sell it when you go back to Germany", "If you move to Costa Rica and stay", "If  you wanna surf in Europe and go on vacation-surf trips" "If you wanna become a longboard-girl". I still have that catalogue ;-) Lorenzo joined him and wanted to write my parents an email with arguments about why I should buy a board xD
• There were loads of other people there, and they all had their own story to tell. I met all of them in Jacó whichis definitely a big point for this little beach town. 
• In Germany, I didn't meet that many new people, but many known beloved people who I am happy to know and proud of being their friend <3

Edit: The german woman who travels aound the world was in a group with one Canadian and one Australian guy. One month later, I met them again in Panama City. That was creepy =) The world still is a small place ;-) 

Last but not least: I don't care as long as you sing by The Beatsteacks.

and I don't care as long as you sing 

and I don't care as long as we swing 

and I don't care as long as you sing

I get everything right and I want you to 

I get everything right I'm not playing rude 

I get everything right I get up and swing

you make me sing

so here we go it doesn't pay 

it won't protect me no more 

when I get up I break it down 

I'll double back and for sure 

I go back to zero

I get up

I swallow a lot if the pressure is up 

and the feeling i've got 

is I'm not gonna stop 

we are back in the early morning 

we are back in the early morning

so here we go it doesn't pay 

it won't protect me no more 

when i get up I break it down 2x 

I'll double back and for sure 

I go back to zero

and I don't care as long as you sing 

and I don't care as long as we swing 

I don't care as long as you sing

I get up

so here we go it doesn't pay 

it won't protect me no more 

when i get up I break it down 2x 

I'll double back and for sure 

I go back to zero

So here we go now

I get everything right and i want you to 

I get everything right I'm not playing rude 

I get everything right I get up and swing