Ada Abroad: Living and Working in Germany

A Custom Worth Importing

2006-04-06T09:22:00.000+02:00

Today was my introduction to the Abi-Scherz.

When I arrived at work this morning, all of the school’s entrances had been blocked off by people in white isolation suits and face masks, the kind health workers wear during outbreaks of epidemics. Several hundred students waited in line to have their bags searched, be frisked, and get spritzed with bottles of “disinfectant.” Someone gave orders through a megaphone. “You in the red shirt! Get to the back of the line. Pointing at the health inspectors and laughing will not be tolerated. This is a serious matter.”

The school, it seemed, had been exposed to a dangerous virus. Actually, several. In addition to bird flu, we had cases of swine flu and acute abiturientitis on our hands.

The health inspectors made me spin around in a circle a couple of times, rifled through my purse (“Kleenex? Have you been exhibiting cold symptoms?”), and sprayed my pants with water.

Although I wasn’t expecting this scene, I wasn’t too concerned. The white isolation suits appeared to be made of porous cotton gauze, and the “health inspectors’” poor posture and excessive eye make-up indicated that they were only 18 or 19 years old. This was a joke—an Abi-Scherz. The graduating 13th-graders had simply come up with a very creative way to delay the start of the school day.

Today is the last week of lessons for our Abiturienten—graduating 13th graders. After this they have several weeks to prepare for the Abitur. The Abitur is required for all students who attend a Gymnasium (college-preparatory school), and functions something like the American SAT: it’s a grueling multi-hour final exam that determines both whether the students qualify for a high school diploma and the right to attend university.

Traditionally, during the last week of school, the Abiturienten come up with creative ways to interrupt or delay lessons—hence the epidemic idea. Which I thought was great—it was certainly very creative, amused everyone (and hence put people in a good mood), and didn’t hurt anybody. To me, this seems like a custom that Americans might want to consider importing.

The Abi-Scherz idea strikes me as greatly preferable to the equivalent from my old high school. I attended Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, a multi-building school on steroids (when I was there, there were 4,700 students) located in the sprawling, faceless, and morbidly conformist unincorporated township of Canton, Michigan. Traditionally, on the last day of school graduating seniors would spray underclassmen with shaving cream, which hurts like a bitch if it gets in your eyes, ruins your clothes, and can eat the paint off your car. Some people also used whipped cream (not as damaging, though it does attract bees). One kid even brought in a spray bottle of Nair, a hair-removal product! Unimaginative and frankly, brutal. Even dangerous.

Where were the health inspectors???

Also, She's FREE!!!

2006-04-04T15:31:00.000+02:00

I just forgot to mention in my last post that, in case you hadn't heard, they let Jill Carroll go (daughter of my high school English teacher, Mary Beth Carroll)!!! And it sounds like she's unharmed.

This must be such a relief for her family.

Breaking the Silence

2006-04-04T15:12:00.000+02:00

OK, I know I haven't written in a really really long time. As usual, my excuse is just that I've simply been too busy. Here's the update:

-I got into all three graduate programs I applied to. All offered me funding, but the amounts vary (of course). However, while that will be playing a role in my decision, it isn't everything.

-Two weeks ago I spent five days in the US visiting one of those three programs. On Friday I'm flying out again to visit another one. (They're paying for my travel expenses. Otherwise, there's no way I could go!) I hope to make my final decision while I'm out there. Since the deadline is April 15th, that will be cutting it a bit close!

Now I suppose I should (briefly) explain the American grad school application process, since there is nothing like it in Germany:

'Graduate school' refers to anything about a Bachelor's degree (the degree that most US college graduates earn-- for us it takes 4 years). In my case it refers to a Ph.D. program. However, since I do not yet have a Master's degree, I'll have to earn one of those first. Doing the coursework for the Master's degree will take 2 years. After that, I will have two years of coursework for the Ph.D., followed by about 2 years of writing my dissertation. Grand total: 6 years. A difference between the US and German systems: since graduate study takes longer in the US, you are not required to know your dissertation topic upon entering. I'll have about 3-4 years to figure that out. However, you do need to know what subject you want to study: you apply directly to the department or program, not to the university.

Applying to grad school is a lot like applying for a job. Unlike in Germany, where you just need a decent grade point average (from the Master's/Magister level) and the support of a sponsoring professor (Doktormutter/Doktorvater) to earn a Ph.D., in the US it is quite difficult to be accepted to grad school. Also, it is considered 'normal' to do your undergraduate and graduate work at two different universities.

The graduate school application process includes:

-Taking a 3-hour (or so) standardized test called the GRE (Graduate Record Exam), which tests knowledge in writing, mathematics, and English. Depending on what you want to study, you may also have to complete additional GRE subject tests. (I took care of the GRE back when I was in the US.)

-Writing a resume/curriculum vitae-- it's expected that you should have won scholarships and awards or presented research as an undergraduate, and you need to document that.

-You need three letters of recommendation from professors who worked with you as an undergraduate.

-You also need to write a Statement of Purpose: basically, an essay describing not only why you are well-suited to attend graduate school, but also why you think that the particular program you're applying to is right for you.

The programs pick and choose which applicants they want to accept-- they aren't required to accept all candidates who meet certain minimum qualifications. In addition, there is the question of funding: Not everyone who is accepted is offered financial support. Without an offer of financial support, you have to pay for tuition yourself (easily $20,000 a year). If you are offered financial support, you are exempt from paying tuition and also receive a small stipend (about $8-$18,000 a year) on which to support yourself. In return, you usually teach undergraduates or serve as a research assistant for a professor.

The point of visiting the programs is to see whether you fit into the department and get along with the people you want to work with. In general, American students have a LOT more contact with their professors than German students do, so it's important to make sure there wouldn't be major personality conflicts.

So, that's what applying to grad school is about, and why it's been eating up all my time and prevented me from blogging for the past two months!

In other news, I'm going to see Brokeback Mountain with my roommates today. Dubbed into German, which will be really weird. Especially since I read the original short story by Annie Proulx (in English, of course-- it's quite good, incidentally) so I have expectations about what Jack and Ennis are supposed to sound like. Hopefully they at least did a decent job translating the dialogue. I dislike dubbing. Why can't the Germans just use subtitles, the way the Dutch do? And might this extra exposure to English have something to do with the fact that the average Dutch person speaks better English than the average German does?

I'll try to write again soon. But probably not til I'm back from the Midwest.

Andere Länder, Andere Viren?

2006-02-04T15:50:00.000+01:00

So, I missed two days of work last week because, for the second time in three weeks, I had a really bad cold. It wasn't a relapse; it was definitely a different cold-- I was healthy for two weeks inbetween, and the symptoms were different. Last time it turned it a sinus infection; this time my ears hurt so bad that I had to borrow my roommate's hair drier to relieve the pain.*

Both times I went to the doctor, and he prescribed a bunch of herbal stuff to treat the symptoms. Too bad that it takes a day and a half to kick in. Plus, I can't keep missing work like this. The school has been very understanding about it so far, but I don't like disappointing the kids. Plus, I just don't having a sore throat/stuffy nose/fever/earache/disgusting cough so much of the time!

What I need to do is find out WHY I'm getting sick so often. I didn't have this problem in college, or last year-- and I was working at a school then, too, so I don't think that's the major culprit.

It has occurred to me that different garden-variety cold viruses might be prevalent in Europe than in North America, and that my immune system might just not be used to the German strains. (Question to readers living abroad: Do you guys also find that you get sick more where you're currently living than you did in the country you grew up in?)

Other ideas:

-Climate: German winters are cool and damp; Michigan winters are BITTER COLD and any humidity in the air immediately falls as snow.

-Public Transportation: I didn't use it much in college, and last year I only took the bus to town about once a week, and it was mostly empty. Here, I ride to Hamm and back on crowded commuter trains three days a week, and occasionally take the bus in Münster.

-School: The school I work at this year has roughly five times as many pupils as my former school, so I come in contact with a larger group of people.

-Anemia: My doctor is running blood tests, because I 'look very pale.' But I've always been rather pale, and I haven't always gotten sick like this... Still, it is a possibility, especially since I'm vegetarian, though I do try to eat plenty of legumes and spinach, which are high-iron foods.

Change of topic: Within the past week, I've been notified of admission to both UC Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin-Madison! Unfortunately neither program can tell me much about financial aid until March, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed (and squeezing my thumbs). Hopefully things will work out there and with Penn State, too, and then I'll have several different graduate programs to choose from. :)

*You let the hot air blow into your ears. It helps. Really.

Off the Wheel and Onto the Dance Floor

2006-01-30T17:16:00.000+01:00

Sometimes the hamster has to stop running before it remembers how to get off the wheel.

I had a two-week vacation from work (and from university classes)at the beginning of this month, followed by a nasty sinus infection that kept me in my apartment for five days--in effect lenghthening my vacation. I experienced free time-- REALLY free time, with no pressure to plan lessons or work on my term paper or grad school apps or whatever-- for the first time in two months.

This enabled me to come to a few important conclusions:

1. I like having free time. Having free time is good.

2. When I have more free time, I am happier in general.

3. When I'm not stressed out, I actually really like Germany.

4. I will only be here until the beginning of July.

Basically, this year I have the chance to live in Germany-- something that I like a lot, and might not get to do again for a long time-- but I've been so busy with university classes, etc., that I haven't even been able to enjoy myself. What a waste! Why should I spend all my time at the university, when I can do that back in the US?

So I cut my course load down to my three favorite classes: Beginning Dutch, Intermediate Italian, and North German Dialects. Now that I'm taking fewer classes, I enjoy the ones I am taking a lot more. And I also have time to see friends on weekends, read for pleasure, travel a little, etc. I've been much, much happier lately. And this has led me to Make Discoveries.

For example, the discovery that, contrary to long-held opinion, I am actually not the Worst Dancer in the Entire World.

I've had this complex since elementary school, and I generally blame it on the fact that I got kicked out of ballet lessons when I was six. (It's true; you can ask my mom if you don't believe me.) Intellectually I know they booted me out because I was a pain in the ass and wouldn't shut up, not because of my clumsiness. But deep down, I've always attributed this early disappointment to my lack of dancing ability. Physical coordination has never been my strong suit, and I was never able to enjoy dancing because I thought that people would laugh at me. (And to be fair, sometimes they did!)

This changed last Thursday.

We had a teachers' party at the school to celebrate the end of the semester, and it was a ton of fun. There was a buffet dinner with free drinks (I only had one, but was nonetheless tipsier
than most people who'd had three or four!). The other young teachers convinced me to join them on the dance floor, despite my protestations that it would only be painful for everyone involved. Even though we'd all forgotten to bring our own CDs, and therefore had to utilize the school's collection (a mixture of extremely cheesy early '80s music, Italian hits from the 1950s, and funk), we still managed to get down. As I expected, I was repeatedly reprimanded-- but for having convinced them that I was horrible, when in fact I'm just about average.

Isn't that great! It turns out that I'm not bad, I'm MEDIOCRE!!!

Only the younger teachers danced, and gender-wise it was a bit one-sided. Actually, it reminded me a lot of the seventh grade-- about ten women dancing and having fun, plus one or two brave men we'd convinced to join us-- and then a big group of guys huddled in a corner on the other side of the room.

After the party was over, as I piled into a small, ancient Volkswagen with four student teachers, I imagined how our students would have reacted had they been able to see us dancing. I pictured my eighth-graders howling with laughter at the horrendous music and our cheesy dance moves.

'Look at them! They actually think they're cool!'

Then I pictured my own 8th grade teachers grooving on the dance floor, and I burst out laughing.
But these were people who were prone to pairing corduroy shorts with lavender tights in winter (my friends and I termed this the 'Benjamin Franklin look') or playing Enya and the Indigo Girls as background music during our creative writing exercises. I'm not that lame yet.

Probably.

I Can't Believe This is Happening

2006-01-19T12:58:00.000+01:00

This entry will not be funny, because the topic is about as far from funny as it's possible to get.

When I was in high school, I had a very talented, very kind Humanities teacher named Mary Beth Carroll. Last week her 28-year-old daughter Jill was kidnapped in Iraq. Jill Carroll is a freelance reporter. She was working for the Christian Science Monitor. She reportedly has a great respect for Arab culture and Islam, and is learning to speak Arabic.

When Jill Carroll went to interview a member of the Iraqi parliament last week, her car was ambushed. The attackers killed her translator and took her hostage.

This morning I got an email from my mother with a link to an article from the Ann Arbor News. Apparently a tape of Jill Carroll was aired on Al Jazeera. The kidnappers are threatening to kill Jill unless the US government releases all female Iraqi prisoners within the next 72 hours.

This is what you don't believe really happens until it affects someone you know. This is the sort of thing you subconsciously don't let yourself acknowledge, the articles in the newspaper that skip over because they're too depressing. Until the victim is your former teacher's daughter and you can't look away anymore.

Please don't look away this time.

Please pray for Jill Carroll and her family.

Belgium

2006-01-17T08:33:00.000+01:00

Since I’m now learning Dutch, I decided to spend a few days of my winter vacation in northwestern Belgium. I could have also gone to the Netherlands, but I visited Amsterdam last year. When you’re getting to know a new language, I feel that it’s important to comparison-shop amongst the countries where it’s spoken until you find the one that suits you best.

Everyone I know who’s been to Brussels has expressed disappointment. The adjectives dirty, ugly, shady, and charmless are frequently used. Plus last year I met a woman who had all her luggage stolen within five minutes of arriving at Bruxelles-Midi train station. So Brussels was out as a possible destination. After flipping through an outdated copy of Let’s Go, I decided to head to Brugge, better known in English as Bruges.

As soon as I reached downtown Brugge, I knew that I had made the right travel decision. The town was gorgeous—narrow little cobblestone streets lined with low brick houses, canals, medieval churches. But it was more than that. I could tell right away that I preferred the Flemish to the Dutch, and for a very good reason: the Flemish appeared to be significantly shorter!!!

At 5 feet, 1 3/4 inches*, I’m shorter than most Dutch 10-year-olds, and therefore I stuck out in Amsterdam like an Ituri rain forest pygmy. My clothes were unobtrusive and not particularly touristy, but everyone knew I was a foreigner immediately because of my height. The trolley conductors always asked to see my ticket-—in English—-ignoring the six-foot Dutch women who boarded ahead of me. I went to a bar one evening and the other patrons gave me funny looks. They probably wondered why I wasn’t hunting with nets in the jungle or singing back-up vocals for Deep Forest or doing the other sorts of things one might expect to occupy a pygmy’s time.

Belgium was different. The natives weren’t exactly short—-I still fell into the bottom quarter of the growth chart—-but they weren’t taller on average than North Americans, so I didn’t look freakish. Strangers on the street actually addressed me in Flemish a couple of times! (I think they were trying to sell me a new payment plan for my non-existent cell phone, but still.)

But Brugge has many charms apart from its inhabitants’ lack of excessive height. As I mentioned previously, the architecture is absolutely gorgeous. Somehow Brugge escaped bombardment in both World Wars, meaning that it’s not merely well-reconstructed, it’s the real deal: an authentic, well-preserved Northern Renaissance town that hasn’t undergone much structural change since then. (Apart from the introduction of indoor plumbing, of course. The toilets in Belgium are perfectly normal, if a little on the dirty side.) There are also a number of museums, including one that has a nice collection of Flemish Masters pieces, and some very good shopping. And then there’s the food—-chocolate and waffles, of course, but how has it escaped everybody’s notice that the Belgians also make great sandwiches?

It’s a good thing that the sandwiches and waffles were fabulous, because those were pretty much the only things I could afford to eat. Brugge’s main drawback is that it’s very wealthy—-both the locals (many of whom were wearing coats made from the carcasses of small mammals) and the crowds of tourists seem to be drawn from upper income brackets. And Brugge is definitely a tourist town: the prescence of horse-drawn carriages and busloads of Japanese people with cameras makes this apparent. Since the residential areas are well-hidden, it even has the feel of a Potemkin village at times. But somehow it was so picturesque that I just didn’t care. In the event that I ever successfully pursuade someone to marry me, I intend to twist her arm until she agrees to stop in Brugge on the honeymoon.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Belgium. Skip Brussels. Go to Bruges.

*For European readers, this is about 154 centimeters. Approximately.

My Merry Weihnachten

2006-01-17T08:27:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in my last 2005 blog entry, a coworker invited me to spend Christmas with her and her family. Her parents live in a small village in the Sauerland, a lovely but remote rural region noted for hills, forests, and not much else. (It kind of reminded me of the Oberlausitz, but without the Neo-Nazis.)

And so I spent a major holiday with somebody else’s family, none of whom I’d ever met before. It was weird. They were all very nice and did their best to make me feel included, but I was homesick anyway. I suppose that’s to be expected. I had a nice time, but it didn’t really feel like Christmas.

German Christmas is fairly different from Christmas in the United States. For one thing, the big event is the evening of the 24th. In German it’s called Heiliger Abend, “holy evening.” The 25th is just an afterthought used for overeating with the friends and relatives you didn’t see on the actual Big Day (or Big Evening, rather). The 26th, which is also a legal holiday, is a replay of the 25th.

Germans are astounded when they hear that Americans do not have a “second day of Christmas.”* Also when they find out that many stores and restaurants are open on Christmas Day itself. Over here, everything shuts down. By law. This leads to a lot of panic-buying just before the holidays (if you’re planning to prepare three or four large meals for guests over the next several days and no stores will be open, it’s vital to make sure you don’t run out of food), as well as increased holiday stress. But the Germans are used to this stress, and my theory is that they secretly enjoy it.

Anyhow, as I was saying before I distracted myself, the most important part of a German Christmas is the evening of the 24th. This is when people come over for dinner. A very LARGE dinner, on the same scale you see in the US, but of course the food is different. No turkey with stuffing here! Instead, the family I stayed with had three kinds of meat (venison, pork, and beef), and, thankfully for me, plenty of vegetarian side dishes as well: red cabbage, potato dumplings, potato croquets, mushrooms and leeks in cream sauce, a salad, a soup, two kinds of bread, pears stuffed with lingonberry sauce, and tiramisu. I have no idea whether any of this is traditional, but in any case, it what was on the menu. I ate way too much (duh). Shortly after midnight my digestive tract repaid me for my misdeeds with violent cramping.

German families also open their presents on Christmas Eve. With my hosts, this was more low-key than a typical American celebration. I suppose people are probably more extravagant with their kids, but everyone present at the celebration I attended was an adult, and the gifts were more like tokens: some scented soap, a candle, a bottle of fancy lotion. The kinds of gifts that American PTA moms give elementary school secretaries. (Believe me, I know: my mother is an elementary school secretary!) Even I was not forgotten. Somebody gave me a white hand towel with pandas on it. Their taste was questionable, but since I’d never met them before and I’m always short of towels, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Maybe part of the reason that Christmas presents are less important in Germany is that the kids, at least, have already opened some presents on St. Nicholas Day. Like the Dutch, German kids leave their schools next to the radiator and wake up to find them filled with goodies. (Interesting trivia tidbit: while Germans celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6th, he visits the Netherlands on the 5th. I wonder where he goes on the 7th. Possibly Luxembourg?)

In terms of Christmas decorations, Germans are more traditional, and less, well, garish, than North Americans. Many still put real candles on their trees, and blinking colored lights are considered absolutely tasteless. Germans make a lot of use of greenery. They’re big on wreaths and evergreen bows and such. Inflatable plastic snowmen and glow-in-the-dark creches are definite no-nos. They don’t hang stockings, either, but that’s just because the stocking custom originated in Britain, not on the Continent.

Like Americans (who actually borrowed the idea from the Dutch, with considerable modifications), the Germans do indeed have a Santa Claus. He is called the Weihnachtsmann (Weihnachten is the German word for Christmas). Traditionally the Weihnachtsmann dressed in green, but today you’re more likely to see him wearing the red costume sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company. He makes his rounds on Christmas Eve, when the kids are still awake. Generally some family member dresses up as the Weihnachtsmann and threatens the kids with a wooden switch before actually handing out their presents.

Unlike our Santa, the Weihnachtsmann is not assisted by elves. Instead, he has a number of slaves, all of whom are named “Ruprecht.” These Ruprechts look kind of like miniature Weihnachtsmänner, only really unattractive. The Weihnachtsmann is not married, either. Germans are sort of baffled by the idea of Mrs. Claus.

“But what does Santa’s wife do?” they ask.

“I don’t know. Not much, really. She wears a red dress and a lace cap and has white hair and glasses. I think she just stays at home, bakes cookies, and mends his suit.” It’s ridiculously sexist when you think about it, really. I suppose that someone invented her because it sounds horribly boring and lonely to live alone at the North Pole with nothing but flying reindeer and a bunch of elves for company. Or maybe the Victorians introduced a wife because they wanted to make it clear that Santa does not have some kind of deviant sex life.

Another thing that surprises Germans about American Christmas lore is that Santa has exactly nine reindeer (there were originally eight, but then a 1950s claymation film introduced Rudolph), and that all of them have names, and that every American school child can recite these names: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blixen.** And Rudolph, of course.

These are all of the Christmas-related cultural differences that I can think of at the moment. I’ve probably forgotten a few things. Feel free to mention them in the comments section.

*Note to Canadian readers: This is way off topic, but what, if anything, do you guys actually do on Boxing Day? I’ve always wondered.

**The names Donder and Blixen come from the Dutch words for thunder and lightning. :)

25 Lessons from My Second Year in Germany (So Far)

2005-12-23T15:14:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone. This will probably be my last post for 2005, since I don't have internet access at home and the university library will be closed for the next several days.

In case you guys are wondering what I'll be doing for the holidays, rest assured that I won't have to spend them alone. One of the Referendarinnen (student teachers) at my school has invited me to spend Christmas Eve with her family. Although this won't be the same as spending time with own family (who I'll still really miss!), I think it will be very interesting to see a traditional German Christmas celebration. Plus, my friend lives in the Sauerland, one of the few regions in NRW that actually gets snow! (I hope to see some-- that's something I really miss about living over here. A Münsteraner winter is a lot like a very long Michigan November-- cold, damp, grey, and dismal.) I plan to have a small Chanukah party some time next week (with whichever friends and colleagues are able to come), New Year's Eve will be spend with my roommate and her friends, and then in the week after New Year's I hope to travel to the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium.

Now, on to the actual topic of this post. I've made a list of things that I've learned so far this schoolyear. Those of you who've been reading my blog for a while will remember that I did the same thing last January. Consider this both an update and an Ergänzung.

1. Eastern Saxony is NOT representative of Germany as a whole. Most Germans are not xenophobic, racist, mean-spirited or provincial. There are plenty of tolerant, friendly, urbane people here.

2. That being said, German society does have a decidedly anti-American bias. Whenever the US does something barbaric (torturing prisoners of war, executing criminals, etc.), it makes front page news. Good things the US does are in the sixth page of the paper, if they're mentioned at all. Conversely, barbaric things that go on in other Anglophone countries-- like the recent race riots in Australia-- are NOT generally front-page news. Furthermore, while every new misdeed of the Bush administration is cited as an example of how decadent/undemocratic/uncultured the US is, the race riots will not negatively affect Germans' view of Australia (even among those Germans who've heard of them). Yes, the American government (read: the Republican party) has done some heinous things lately, and the criticism is warranted. But it still annoys me to hear something bad about my country every day-- and to go weeks without hearing a single good thing. The current political situation is not an excuse to deny that America has ever done anything good (examples: stopping incipient genocide in Kosovo, preventing the Russians from invading your ass for about 45 years), or to blindly assume to American culture and society have nothing to offer the rest of the world. Nor is it fair to assume that all or even most Americans agree with the policies of the Bush government!

3. American university students have it good. Sure, tuition is about five times as high as it should be, but small class sizes, research opportunities for undergraduates, and professors who aren't on major ego trips are invaluable.

4. Attempting to take six university classes AND teach schoolchildren 12 hours a week is not a good idea.

5. Münster residents are not noted for being outgoing or polite to strangers.

6. I love living in a WG (co-op apartment)! It's nice to have people to talk to (it beats talking to myself or having one-sided arguments with the newscasters on television, like I did last year). Furthermore, my roommates can give me pointers on things to do, which stores carry certain items, the finer points of inscrutable German household appliances, etc. And splitting the rent three ways allows me to live in a much nicer part of town than I could otherwise afford.

7. People in the Ruhrgebiet are very friendly and open (for Germans), but good grief, the cities there are ugly!

8. Teaching high school is definitely not for me. The teaching part itself is enjoyable-- but I would die of a stress-related heart attack after about two years. I admire people who are actually able to do this long-term.

9. Yes, Virginia, there are non-homophobic societies in the world! And it's WONDERFUL.

10. There is something to be said for light-weight Scandinavian furniture, as well as attractive, moderately-priced home accessories. (Yes, I'm talking about IKEA.)

11. Learning a second foreign language through the medium of your first foreign language is quite difficult, unless a. the two languages in question are very closely related (like German and Dutch) and b. you haven't previously studied the second foreign language through your mother tongue.

12. Giving up meat is not a big sacrifice. Even at Thanksgiving! They do the most amazing things with legumes, tofu, wheat protein, and nutritional yeast these days.

13. German sparkling wine does nasty things to me, even if I only drink one glass of it.

14. Riding a bicycle in traffic is easier than it looks.

15. Most children under the age of about 12 cannot understand irony. (Note: this also explains why the other girls in my Brownie troop never got my jokes.)

16. If you want to freak out a Westphalian, give them a vivid description of Michigan winter weather conditions (complete with average snow fall and wind chill factor).

17. No, filing graduate school applications does not necessarily get any easier just because you've successfully done it before...

18. Unless you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, you may want to avoid the park directly behind Münster's main train station.

19. I'd be happier if I had a dog :(

20. I actually like Jane Austen novels (who would have thought)?

21. Fifth and sixth graders are cheerful and winsome. Twelfth and thirteenth graders are surprisingly mature and rational. But seventh through eleventh graders are ticking hormone bombs and are best left to the professionals.

22. I do not deal well with the long winter nights typical of northern latitudes.

23. Germany is the only country in the world in which every retiree doubles as a plain-clothes police officer. If you don't believe me, just try crossing the street on red (when there's no traffic in either direction), or slowly and cautiously riding your bicycle on the sidewalk for a few yards (because the bike lane ended abruptly).

24. Technologically, I'm so far behind the times that I may as well go Amish.

25. No matter how long you've lived abroad, if you unexpectedly bang your shin against something, you will still curse in your first language.

Well, Back in MY Day...

2005-12-08T14:12:00.000+01:00

One of the teachers left me alone with a room full of fifth-graders all day. He said he needed to make a few photocopies and would be about five minutes late to class, but apparently something came up, because he never showed. I generally like working with the younger kids-- they're cute, and they're utterly unselfconscious-- but managing 32 perky, pint-sized individuals who have no sense of irony for a full hour is beyond my capacities. I'm not a trained teacher; I'm a trained LINGUIST. Besides, my contract specifically states that I 'shall not be required to hold entire lessons without a teacher present.'

Mild chaos ensued.

It started with hats. 'Can I wear my hat in class?' asked Felix. 'I don't know. What do the other teachers say?' 'Some let us, some don't,' said Malte helpfully. 'Well, what does your regular English teacher say?' 'He lets us.' 'Then it's ok.'

After we had established that they could wear their hats and gloves (but only if they wore both, because wearing one reminded me of Michael Jackson, which was frankly creepy), that drinking was ok, but eating was not, and that shouting over the children I had actually called on was still unacceptable, two of the girls asked if they could use the bathroom. I let them go-- at the same time. This was my first mistake.

As soon as Maike and Anne were out the door, Klara tapped me on the shoulder and whispered... 'You know, both of them took their mobile phones with them. I don't think they really just wanted to go to the toilet.'

MOBILE PHONES?!?!?

This caught me completely off guard. Having grown up in the last century, it simply hadn't occurred to me that ten-year-old kids would have their own cell phones, let alone bring them to school. Even when I was in high school, none of my friends had mobile phones-- only a handful of spoiled rich kids did. And the only people who could bring them to school were the diabetics, who might conceivably need them for a medical emergency. I know that things have changed, and I wouldn't have been surprised if one of my twelfth-graders had pulled out a cell phone. But the cute little ones? These are people who wear their hair in pigtails and are pleased to find LEGOs in their shoes on St. Nicholas Day! What do they need cell phones for?

'Boys and girls, someone has just brought something to my attention. Everyone who has a cell phone, please put it on your desk where I can see it.'

Two dozen tiny people rummaged through their backpacks and coat pockets until their stubby (and occasionally sticky) fingers clasped objects of high technology that didn't even exist when I was their age.

'Ok,' I said, using my best teacher voice. 'From now on, no one touches their phone during my lesson. And that includes during bathroom breaks.'

Some of the little people began to look mortified.

'By the way, what do you kids need mobile phones for, anyway?'

Hands were raised.

'To call my friends.' 'To send text messages.' 'To call my mom in case I need her to pick me up.' 'My daddy pays my cell phone bill from his bank account.' 'Really? I have to pay mine myself!' 'I got a new phone for Saint Nicholas Day.' 'My phone used to belong to my older sister, but now she has a new one...'

When the discussion degenerated to the point that various groups of children were shouting over one another or chatting loudly with their friends, I motioned for silence. Then I used a phrase which I have never used before in my life, and which made me feel like a senior citizen as soon as it left my mouth:

'When I was a little girl...'

I explained that when I was in fifth grade, NO ONE had cell phones. And that this wasn't really all that long ago-- I'm only 24. And that we got along without them just fine, thank you.

'Oh, but things are different today,' said Florian knowingly. 'It's hard to get by without a cell phone these days. What if I need my mom to pick me up early?'

I should have told him that fifteen years ago, when children needed their parents to pick them up early, they used pay phones. But instead, I told them, 'Well, I don't have a cell phone.'

32 sets of eyes looked at me with undisguised pity. 'Oh,' said Ann-Christine. 'Maybe you'll get one for Christmas?'

I wonder how they would have reacted had I told them that I don't have a television, either.

It's funny how little things like this can suddenly make a person feel like an aging schoolmarm instead of a fresh-faced college kid. I'm so out of it that not only do I not have a cell phone, but I didn't even realize that most preadolescents today do. My lack of a cell phone seemed just as exotic to them as my grandmother's stories about sharing bath water with her seven brothers and sisters did to me when I was their age. How did I suddenly get to be an old person? What the hell happened?

Perils of Intercultural Communication

2005-12-01T11:50:00.000+01:00

The other day at work I noticed a basket of holiday goodies on the table-- cookies, tangerines, and chocolate coins.

'Oh, neat!' I exclaimed (in English) to a fellow English teacher, pointing at the coins. 'We have these in the US, too, but for Chanukah. We call them 'Chanukah gelt.'

'For Chanukah?' said the other teacher, eying me skeptically.

I figured that maybe she'd never had any contact with Jewish people before and wasn't familiar with our holiday customs.

'Well, sure. There's a game you play with a dreydl-- a kind of spinning top, see-- and the top has letters on it. It's like a gambling game, but with chocolate coins. If you get a certain letter, you take all the coins in the pot, and another letter means you take half, and then there's a letter where you have to give up your coins...'

As I continued to spell out the rules, she began to look more and more confused.

'And who does this?'

'Jewish people. Well, kids, mostly. It's a children's game. Chanukah's a fun holiday. I'm going to have a Chanukah party later in December. With latkes-- potato pancakes. You can come if you like.'

Now appearing horrified, the teacher asked. 'So, Jewish people in the US have a holiday for CHANUKAH?!?!?'

'Sure. It's the Festival of Lights. I mean, what's the big deal?'

Then she started laughing. 'Oh! Oh, Chanukah!' She used the German pronunciation-- khah-NOO-kah.* 'God! I thought you meant HONECKER.' As in Erich Honecker, former dictator of the German Democratic Republic.

A festival for Erich Honecker, complete with chocolate coins and a children's gambling game. Now, wouldn't that be something?

*in English it's HAH-nuh-kuh, or if you can manage the Hebrew, KHAH-noo-kah. Stress on the first syllable!

WG

2005-11-13T21:40:00.000+01:00

For the past two and half weeks I've been living in a Wohngemeinschaft (shared apartment) in Münster: WG (pronounced vay-gay, for you English-speaking types!) for short. I like it here; it definitely beats the fire station. For the amusement of my friends and family, I'm going to devote this entry to describing my living conditions. Apologies if it bores my other readers :).

So, I share a three-bedroom apartment with two unemployed lawyers in their late twenties. Both recently finished the two-year training period required for all civil servants and state employees in Germany and are hunting for jobs. (This is not easy in Münster--the university here has the third-largest law department in the country, with about 10,000 undergraduate students!) My roommates are both very nice. They give me lots of pointers on the details of German life (properly sorting the garbage, how to get the calcium residue off the shower doors, why the newspaper didn't show up on All Saints' Day #, etc.), and they're great partners for breakfast-time political debates. One of them also occasionally gives me rides in his Panda. (In this case, Panda refers not to a large, bamboo-eating mammal distantly related to the raccoon, but rather to a comical-looking Italian-made automobile with about as much leg room as a large waste basket.)

We have an Altbauwohnung, which means that 1. we have an actual bathtub, as opposed to just a shower, and 2. the windows let in drafts. I have the largest bedroom, which means that I also pay the largest rent-- but it's still only €8 more a month than I paid for a horrible basement room in a village in eastern Saxony, so I'm not complaining.

The floors are tiled and they get really cold, so I've taken to wearing Hausschuhe-- now I get why Germans are so big on wearing shoes indoors! (Last year both the places I lived in had carpeting, so I was able to stick to my American stocking-feet habit.) Hausschuhe are not necessarily slippers, though they can be. They can be pretty much any kind of shoes, as long as they're inexpensive and you only wear them inside. Mine are actually flip-flops.

Furniture. The girl who had this room before me (she moved to Denmark) bequeathed me a large bookcase, an end table, and a bunch of nice plants. My 'bed' is a mattress and Lattenrost that I purchased from a physics teacher for 20 euro. (A Lattenrost is a kind of wooden board thing that you place beneath your mattress--way more comfortable than it sounds. You can adjust it so that the mattress becomes more or less firm. Germans don't use American-style box-spring mattresses!) At the moment my mattress is sitting on the ground, but tomorrow my roomate and I are taking the Panda to the German equivalent of the Home Despot ## in order to get some concrete blocks I can prop it up on. Spartan, yet functional. My mentor teacher gave me a desk and a chair with wheels, and another teacher has an armchair and some lamps I can use (though those haven't arrived yet). Just this Friday I got the final piece of furniture I really needed: a Schrank.

I use the German word 'Schrank' because, well, we don't have Schränke in the US. The equivalent English word is 'wardrobe,' but who uses it anymore? Unless you happen to live in a house built before 1930 or so that was never retrofitted, you probably keep your clothes in a closet. Germans don't have closets. In fact, as far as I know, there isn't even a German word for 'closet.' They have to describe it in a round-about way, as an 'Anziehkammer' (literally, 'room for putting your clothes on'), which isn't even very accurate, since it's neither a separate room, nor do you actually get dressed inside it... (My uncle, who was stationed here for a couple of years back when he was in the military, says that he heard once that the reason that Germans don't have closets is that you're taxed more for each additonal room in your apartment, and a closet would count as a room for tax purposes. Do any of my German readers know whether that's accurate?) So essentially, unless I wanted to live out of my suitcase and wear wrinkled clothes all year, I had to get a Schrank. This was slightly problematic, since, as major pieces of furniture, Schränke tend to be pretty expensive.

Ikea to the rescue! For those of you who are not acquainted with the wonders of Scandinavian interior decorating, Ikea is a Swedish company that makes attractive, mostly light-weight furniture, which is reasonably priced because you assemble it yourself. (They also have really cool accessories. While I was there I bought a windchime, some netting to hang around my bed, a bunch of fake flowers, and an extra set of sheets-- I spent a lot more than I had intended to!) Incidentally, Ikea also has good food. But that's neither here nor there. I wanted to tell you about my Schrank. I got a model called 'Vestby,' probably the cheapest Schrank they make-- only 35 euro. It's inexpensive for good reason. Most Schränke are made of wood. My Vestby has a wood frame (light-weight balsam, or something), but most of it is made of plastic sheeting. It looks nice, and it serves it's purchase, but as my roommate put it: 'If my grandpa saw this, he'd have a heart attack! He was a carpenter. This isn't a Schrank, it's a Kleidungaufbewahrungsgegenstand!' (literally: object in which you store clothes. It sounds funnier in German.)

The other reason that my Schrank was so inexpensive was that it was made in Romania. (Possibly by orphans with shaved heads and poor social skills.) ###

And now, on to the neighborhood. We live on a quiet residential street, within walking distance of a bank, bakery, small grocery store, etc. The funny thing is that it happens to be in the Hafenviertel, a major party district. (Supposedly. I haven't seen any evidence of this yet.) It's also the 'alternative' neighborhood in Münster. There are lots of people here with dreadlocks. You can see them at the traditional German bakery every morning, buying rolls. (The first time I saw this juxtiposition, I couldn't help giggsling.) The other interesting fact about my neighborhood is that it's near the train station, and even closer to the park behind the train station. Lots of alcoholics, drug addicts, and homeless people hang out there. (I prefer the homeless people. They're the least intimidating.) When I told my dad about this he became rather concerned, but I don't actually feel unsafe there. I just don't walk through the park alone at night. One of the nice things about Germany is that's comparatively hard for drug addicted alcoholic homeless people to buy firearms here!

# Reason: It's a legal holiday in Nordrhein-Westfalen: and that means the paperboy gets the day off, too!
## No, this is not a typo. I just have a sick sense of humor.
### I told you that I have a sick sense of humor!

Another Kind of Culture Shock

2005-11-03T12:20:00.000+01:00

It's funny how after you've lived abroad for a while, things that used to make you stare (dogs in restaurants, naked people in political advertisements, etc.) become normal, and you think that culture shock is a thing of the past... but then you're suddenly thrust into a new situation, and your host country seems foreign again.

Something like this happened to me last week when I started taking classes at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universitat Münster.

I'm signed up for a seminar on German-Speaking Minorities Abroad. I figured there would be about 25-30 people in the course. There are at least 60. Which is to say, it is around 400% bigger than the German classes I took in the US (average class size: 15), and 600% bigger than my linguistics classes (average class size: about 10.) And, again, I want to emphasize that this is a seminar, not a lecture class (Vorlesung) in which you might reasonably expect to find 100 students or so. In a seminar, people are (supposedly) expected to participate in discussions, ask questions, create presentations, etc. How is this going to be possible with 60 people in the room? If I want to ask something, I won't even be able to get the professor's attention!

Which brings me to my next point. Expectations about participation are totally different. Basically, by American standards, German students are not expected to participate much. They come to class, sit quietly, and maybe ask for clarification. But my impression is that there isn't much emphasis placed on discussion, debating issues and so forth. The professors don't even randomly call on people to see whether the students are mastering the material.

Another weird thing: there is basically no homework. My professors in the US always at least assigned reading: 'please read pages 45-150, inclusive, and be prepared to discuss varieties of language contact on Monday.' Then, on Monday they would ask questions about pages 45-150 (inclusive), and if you couldn't answer them you'd lose paricipation points and end up with a C in the class. Here, they don't assign reading, they make reading suggestions. Sort of. (My impression is that the reading is only suggested for people who plan to their presentations on particular topics. But if I can, I want to do all of it anyway, because I like to be informed.) And there is no collected homework of any kind. The only assignments are either a 30-minute presentation or a 20-page paper, due at the end of the course. Really. That's it. (In the US, we have assignments like that, too-- but also lots of smaller assignments to go with them!)

My impression so far is that this is child's play.

This is very different, but I think I can get used to it.

But something else, which I don't like at all, is the amount of distance between students and faculty here. At my home university, professors were always encouraging us to go to their office hours-- to talk about the course topics, or sometimes just to chat. After a while we got to know each other, and I could ask things like 'How's your daughter doing?' or 'Did you have a nice time in Argentina?' In short, we treated each other like people. Academics in Germany seem to put themselves on a sort of pedestal. I can't imagine them attending their students' graduation parties, or even just chatting about the weather.

Another thing-- back in the US, I called all of my professors by their first names. Most of them insisted on it. For example, one guy, Dan, would actually correct you if you tried to call him Dr. S! He was a full professor, and nationally known in his field, but as far as I can tell he only used his title at conferences. Here, you have to call professors by multiple titles. 'Herr Doktor Professor S.' 'Mister Doctor Professor S.' This is their way of stressing that they are more important than you are.

Pompousity is the order of the day.

Things are different in my foreign language classes, because the instructors are 1. not tenured faculty and 2. not German. One of my Italian teachers isn't much older than I am. We call her by her first name, and she calls us 'ragazzi.' ('Guys' in Italian.) And the Dutch lady is, well, Dutch. It seems that the Dutch restrict formal forms of address to complete strangers and people they dislike.

But back to Italian. Last year, a German told me that Germans think Italian is an ugly or comical language, which I thought was really weird, since Americans consider it beautiful. But now I get it: as spoken by Germans, Italian is an ugly and comical language. I have a hard time understanding my classmates. I have to ask them to repeat themselves two or three times, so I've taken to feigning a mild hearing impairment. I figure that's more polite than saying 'I'm sorry, but I can't understand you because your accent is so bad.' The problem is that most of them can't produce an Italian R (a trilled or 'rolled' R produced on the back of your teeth). So instead they use a German R, which is basically a gargling sound. This sounds awful, and renders certain words unintelligible. (--Not that Americans learning Italian always have such great accents, either. Italian with an American R is just as unattractive, but it's easier for me to understand because I'm used to it.)

But it's doing good things for my self-esteem. After Italian class, I feel much better about my problems with German consonant clusters.

Total Erschöpft

2005-10-27T12:11:00.000+02:00

In the past week I have:

1. Moved most of my stuff from the fire station in Hamm to a WG (co-op apartment) in Münster.
2. Started four university classes (Beginning Dutch, German-Speaking Minorities Abroad, History of the German Language from the Late Middle Ages through Early Modern Times, and Northwest Low German Dialects).
3. Changed from observing 12 lessons a week at my host school to actually teaching nine lessons a week and being on-call for 5 others-- with all the accompanying planning, etc.
4. Been getting up at around 6 am every day to catch the train (and then the bus) to work.
5. Been sleeping on an air mattress.

And in the next few days, I still have to:
1. Start two other uni classes (both in intermediate Italian).
2. Move the rest of my belongings from Hamm to Münster.
3. Coordinate the delivery of my furniture (most of which is on loan from colleagues).
4. Get moving on grad school applications.
5. Purchase a pillow (I don't have one at the moment).

I need a cup of coffee. And I don't even drink coffee! Maybe I should just inject the caffeine intravenously; that would probably work faster.

A more intresting post will follow when I actually have time to write. I'm to tired to attempt to be witty right now.

The Tale of the C-Test Troll

2005-10-21T13:24:00.000+02:00

(With apologies to the Brothers Grimm.)

Long ago and far away in the land of Münster there was a large university where many students attended classes. One of these students was named 'Ada.' Ada was from a far-away country called 'America' where people spoke a strange language called 'English.' This meant that Ada spoke German with a peculiar intonation and had difficulty pronouncing the word 'rechts.' However, she understood German very well. Despite the fact that she was a foreigner, she could read Goethe in the original German without trouble. Despite the fact that she was an American, she did not eat hamburgers or carry a gun on her person.

The Uni-Münster had a Sprachenzentrum (Language Center) where its students could take classes in any of several foreign languages, including English, German as a second language, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Turkish, and Arabic. Ada thought that it might be fun to pick up Italian again. So she journeyed over many cobblestone streets through the land of Münster, past many strange creatures in designer clothes (chiefly civil servants on their lunch breaks, but also the occasional unicorn or talking pig-- this is a fairy tale, after all), and wended her way to the Sprachenzentrum for a C-Test. The C-Test was a test of will that Uni-Münster subjected its students to before they could register for language classes. It involved computers and hand-to-hand combat with a troll.

The university in Münster employed many trolls. There was a troll in the library who barked at Ada for omitting her postal code on her library card application form, and who insisted on addressing her in 'Auslanderdeutsch'* even though she understood normal German. There was the office worker in the Dutch department who called Ada 'du' and gave her the third degree when she asked whether all the places in the Dutch I course had been filled yet. It seemed that Uni-Münster believed that dealing with trolls built students' character.

The most fearsome troll of all administered the C-Test.

It was a small troll, only about five feet tall. It had brown hair and wore a cross pendant, and looked like it might have been around 25 years old. The troll's appearance was not ugly, but its personality was hideous.

Ada huddled with the other students in a corridor outside the C-Test Chamber. She waited until the troll beckoned her into the chamber, along with four other students.

The first test was to produce a student ID card and register for the test. Ada did not have an ID card-- the university hadn't sent it to her yet. 'If you don't have an ID card, then that means you aren't registered at the university and you don't have a student number yet!' barked the troll (in German). 'My student number is here,' said Ada, producing her registration papers. The troll glowered and pointed Ada to a computer where she was to sit and insert Italian words into newspaper articles. As she did so, she kept one ear on the C-Test troll, who ritually humiliated each of the other students in turn.

Ada received 49 out of 100 points on her Italian test. The troll's human assistant printed a certificate for her and said 'Go next door, where my colleague can advise you further.' Ada was sent on to the Second Chamber of C-Test Torture, where she met...

The original troll from the other room. (It appears that Uni-Münster is rather short-staffed.) The troll pointed her to another computer. But Ada didn't know which course she should sign up for.

'I need to register, and...'

'You don't need to register! You've already taken the test,' snapped the troll.

'I meant to register for classes, and I don't know which level to sign up for. The lady next door said you could provide advice.'

The troll glared. 'I don't do academic advising here. Everything you need to know is on the website.'

So Ada sat down and scanned through the web site. Try as she might, she couldn't find anything that told her what kind of class someone who had scored 49 points should sign up for.

Meanwhile, another student had entered the Second Chamber of C-Test Torture. This young woman had very short hair and a friendly countenance. Unsuspecting, she bent down to whisper a question to the C-Test Troll. Said troll recoiled as if the young woman was a poisonous snake, and made a disgusted face.

Ada decided it was better not to ask the troll how to use the website. So she whispered her question to a law student who had made conversation with her in the hall.

'I already told you,' shouted the troll, 'that you don't need to register for the test, you've already taken it!'

'I know,' said Ada. Ada raised her voice and spoke slowly, as if to a mentally handicapped toddler. 'I want to know how to determine which level I should sign up for. I can't find the information on the web site.'

'I can't tell you which level to register for!'

'YES. I KNOW. THAT'S WHY I ASKED THE OTHER STUDENTS WHAT PART OF THE WEB SITE DEALS WITH THAT.'

The law student gave Ada the 'thumbs-up' sign behind the troll's back.

Cowed, the troll sat down and calmly showed Ada to the pertinent information.

Having vanquished the evil C-Test-Troll, Ada left the Sprachenzentrum and went back into Münster, where she bought some cheese at the market and lived happily ever after. And the troll went back where she belonged. (Under a bridge near the Open Air Museum, where she subsists on billy goats and lost tourists.)

*A kind of pidgin-German chiefly spoken by those native speakers of German who assume that all foreigners are stupid. It involves calling people 'du' (a form of address usually reserved for close friends, children, and animals) and putting all verbs in the infinitive.

Oh! So this is what a NORMAL school is like!

2005-10-04T11:58:00.000+02:00

Hello readers. Please excuse my long absence from my blog. In the past few weeks, I've been taking care of various burocratic hassles related to the university, my visa (the kind that goes in your passport, not the little plastic card!), and my bank account; tracking down a new place to live in Münster (once I start attending classes I don't want to be commuting from the fire station in Hamm every day!); and, most importantly, getting to know my new host school.

Let me tell you, this school is fantastic. There's really no comparison between this school and the last one. Everything about it so much more pleasant.

I suppose I should stop talking in generalities and give you some specifics. Here goes:

The colleagues are great. The teachers here are actually friendly! People talk to me in the staff room just to make conversation, not just when I'm standing in their way or they want something done. They take me out to lunch, invite me over for coffee and cake, lend me well-equipped bicycles, and show me around Münster. I've even made a friend! One of the younger teachers and I have a lot in common, and we've started hanging out. It's really nice to have a social life and to be friendly with people at work. Most of the teachers at the last school didn't pay much attention to me, and none of them wanted to see me socially-- although the Sorbian teacher did take me out on occasional cultural excursions. To be fair, almost all of them were pretty old-- the median age for teachers at that school was about 50, and the youngest was in her late thirties. This school has a mix of all different ages, from Referendare (trainee teachers) who are only a couple years older than me to oldsters getting ready to retire. But then, the middle-aged teachers here are friendly, too.

The kids are smart! Well, yes, this a Gymnasium (public college-preparatory school); of course the kids are smart. But working with Gymnasiasten is really worlds different from working with Haupt- and Realschüler (remedial and comprehensive-track kids)-- especially from working with Hauptschüler! The main difference may not be actual level of intelligence, but rather motivation-- these kids want to learn, and many of them are actually interested in the subject matter. My eighth-grade girls are pressing me to start an after-school English club! Another difference-- there are hardly any kids here with severe behavioral problems. Not that they're all little angels all the time-- they aren't!-- but I haven't seen anyone swear at teachers yet or heard of anybody plundering the school cafeteria's cash box.

This school is multicultural. In a way it's kind of ironic that I need to bring this up, since in theory the school that I worked at last year was multicultural, too-- after all, it was located in one of the few areas of Germany with an indigenous ethnic minority (the Sorbs). But that school didn't feel multicultural-- the Sorbs and their traditions were hardly ever mentioned, and there were no non-white kids, kids for whom German was the second language, or kids of non-German citizenship. At this school, I have students who are (among other things): Black, Korean, Russian, Yugoslav, Thai, Turkish, English, South Asian, and Welsh (really!). The best thing about this is that no one makes a big deal of this-- in a negative way, I mean. At my old school, teachers routinely made racist comments. If something looked messy, the principal would say 'Es sieht hier wie in Korea aus!' ('It looks like Korea in here!')* I have yet to hear any racism from teachers here-- or from students, for that matter.

The classroom environment is so much nicer. My old school was, well, very Eastern Bloc. The kids sat in rows and were not allowed to speak unless spoken to. Lessons were teacher-centered: I was pressured to design lessons in which I did most of the talking-- a big no-no for language teachers, actually. Group work was discouraged because it resulted in 'too much chit-chat.' (Funny, I thought that learning a foreign language required conversing in it!) Students received deportment grades for Ordnung (orderliness, punctuality), Fleiß (being hard-working), Mitarbeit (participation and cooperation), and Betragen (not swearing at teachers, towing the line). There was no grade for creativity-- which, except maybe in art class, definitely was not encouraged. Here, some teachers seat their kids in 'table' arrangements, facing each other, like in American middle schools. The kids are allowed to talk during seat work-- even loudly!-- as long as they stay on-task and quiet down when the teacher needs to say something. It's much livelier and friendlier. And the best thing is that I'll get to have some more independence in designing my lessons. I don't have to just teach from the textbook. Bringing in outside materials (and even introducing topics not covered in the text) is ok, too.

Did I mention that I'm really happy here? :)

More soon, I hope!

*Note: Like many prejudiced comments, this statement is really stupid. Everyone I know who has been to Korea says that it is a very clean, orderly country. Not unlike, oh... Germany!

Welcome to Hamm

2005-09-26T15:43:00.000+02:00

Hamm doesn’t appear to be a particularly interesting city, and it’s not gorgeous, but it’s not butt-ugly either. The eastern half of the city, a residential district inhabited chiefly by lawyers (Hamm is the seat of a court of appeals), is quite pleasant. There are also a lot of nice parks.

I don’t live in the lawyer district. Actually, there are no houses here. As far as I can tell, the area I live in consists of nothing but factories and slag heaps—there isn’t even a grocery store within walking distance. But my apartment is very nice. I have a spacious bedroom with two large wardrobes, free internet access (too bad my modem cable won’t fit into a German phone jack!), and a private bathroom with shower. The kitchen is semi-private. I share it with two firemen, but neither of them seems to do any actual cooking—I think they just eat sandwiches—so I basically have it to myself.

Honestly I don’t mind living above a fire station. The PA system is annoying, but the fire chief did shut it off in my room. The sirens can be loud at times, but thankfully there haven’t been any fires at night yet. And the firemen are very helpful. Just a few minutes ago they helped me find the laundry room. (It’s next to the ambulances. Logical.)

“So, where are you from?” asked a fireman (in German).

“The United States.”

“Really? We thought you might be from France.”

“You too!?! I hear that a lot.”

Which brings me to my next point—why does everybody in Germany think I’m French? It isn’t a problem—I don’t have anything against France—but it is rather inexplicable. I’ve never been to France, and my knowledge of the French language is limited to Je ne parle pas français. Furthermore, unless you abstract back to the Norman invasion of England, I’m only about 5% French—and that’s not even real French; it’s Walloon (French-speaking Belgian). Actually, the largest component of my ethnic make-up is German. My maternal grandmother is descended from Bavarians and German-speaking people from the Batschka (which used to be part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but now belongs to Serbia), and on my dad’s side I’m part German-speaking-Swiss.

I’ve been told that if you speak grammatical German and don’t have a hideous American accent, Germans usually assume that you can’t be from the United States. Two friends of mine who’ve lived here have mentioned that people often thought they were Dutch, and my German professor (of Italian and American Indian descent) was usually taken to be Turkish or Greek. Since I’m too short to be Dutch and to pale to be from the Mediterranean, is French nationality assigned to me by default?

Or do I actually look French? I don’t know enough French people to have an opinion on the matter. I am fairly thin, which is a quality often attributed to French people, and I try to dress nicely, but I don’t smoke, drink red wine, or carry baguettes under my arm in a picturesque manner.

--Are there lots of short French people? Do many of them have wavy brown hair? (Thinking of the few French people I’ve known, I would consider red hair to be more typically French…) Are they pale and prone to freckling if they get too much sun, and are their bottom teeth crooked? Do the French tend toward myopia? Do they worry excessively?

Quick Update

2005-09-03T15:07:00.000+02:00

Ok, here's what's new:

-Uni Münster somehow lost my application file! Fulbright sent me an email about this last Friday, along with an online application form to fill out. Unfortunately, the form didn't work the way it was supposed to (basically, I couldn't mail the completed form back to Fulbright or submit it online) so I had to print it out and mail it Germany. And it will take about a week to get there. Hopefully that won't be too late...

-My school has found temporary housing for me in Hamm. For the first couple of weeks after I arrive, I can stay rent-free in an apartment in Hamm. Supposedly it's located directly above a fire station, which might be interesting. Sufficient to say, I plan to bring ear plugs.

-My search for permanent housing is going fairly well. I've been looking on www.studentenwg.de . So far I've responded to about nine ads and gotten two responses, both of which sound fairly promising. Hopefully one of these will work out! Some of them are Zwischenmiete, some aren't, and it's hard to keep track of which are which... But if I don't find a room that already has some furniture, my Betreuungslehrer says that colleagues at the school can loan me some items.

-I still haven't even started to pack. Three guesses what I'll be doing all weekend!

2005-08-31T01:56:00.000+02:00

I got an email from the Fulbright Commission today. Apparently Uni Muenster has LOST my application materials!!!!!!

Since I'm applying through Fulbright, I should still be able to enroll in the university. But this is a major pain in the ###. Especially since the online form that I'm supposed to fill out won't let me save my information... I can open the form, and I can write on it, but I can't save the changes to the form. So all I could do would be to send the blank form back to the Fulbright Commission!

I really hope that I don't have to fax it to them. Kinko's charges six dollars a page for international faxes. And this form is about five pages long. And I've been unemployed virtually all summer!

Some good news: my host school in Hamm has found an apartment where I can live rent-free for a couple of weeks, until I find permanent accomodation (hopefully in Muenster). The apartment is directly above a fire station.

I plan to bring earplugs.

Münster Here I Come!

2005-08-26T19:25:00.000+02:00

Some good news: I got an email from Fulbright today, and my application to Uni Münster has been accepted!

I still don't know whether I'll have to pay tuition. Nordrhein-Westfalen recently introduced fees of 650 Euro per semester for foreign students who already have a Bachelor's or equivalent degree (like me). Current Fulbright grantees can get this waived, but it's not certain whether Fulbright will be able to get them to waive tuition for an alumna. I can pay it if I have to, but money's a little tight, so I'd prefer to avoid the fees if I can...

In any case, I look forward to taking classes in Germanic linguistics, Italian, and possibly German literature!

Soon I'll have to start looking online for housing in the Münster area. It's probably too late to apply for a dorm room, so a room in a WG (like a co-op apartment) might be my best bet. Of course, there is one small problem: I don't have any furniture.

Question for readers: Do any WGs offer furnished rooms? (If they don't, then I suppose I'll put up a list in the teacher's lounge and see whether any of my colleagues might be able to lend me a mattress, a chair, etc. for the year!)

Textual Analysis of a Rather Bad Movie

2005-08-20T21:57:00.000+02:00

I just got back from going to the movies with my parents. My mom picked the film, based on previews she'd seen and probably reviews she'd read. She likes suspense films, so she picked something called "Red Eye."

It's about a young woman who works in a hotel. She's trying to fly home to Miami from her grandmother's funeral in Texas. A passably attractive guy strikes up a conversation with her in the check-in line, and then they go to an airport bar together (where he makes a rather unsettling "joke" about killing his parents). They wind up sitting together on the flight. And... dun dun DUN!... he's a terrorist! He tells her this straight out, of course.

Two hours later (and wiser), my mom agrees that this was not the greatest movie decision. If she'd known what it was going to be like, she'd have picked something else. As my dad put it, "That was a made-for-TV movie."

He has a point. The acting is second-rate, and there are a lot of loose ends that never get tied together. (For example, the lead character's dad is recently retired, but what was his job, anyway? And how did she get so chummy with the director of Homeland Security?)

But "Red Eye" is more than a TV movie mistakenly marketed as a "real" movie; it's a TV movie with propagandistic tendencies. I'll get to that in a minute.

(Note: this post contains plot spoilers. I will assume that you wouldn't want to see this movie, anyway, because it's not very good--- save your money!--- but if you insist on wasting your $6, you should stop reading now.)

Plot summary continues:

Mr. Self-Identified Terrorist has apparently been following Hotel Girl around for months. He knows her favorite drink, her commuting habits, and even that she eats a lot of eggs. Why is he following her? Because he knows that the Director of Homeland Security likes to stay at her hotel. And he wants to kill Mr. Homeland Security. (Why is never fully explained. Presumably he thinks that this will Demoralize the American People. Which strikes me as slightly unrealistic. Sure, nobody likes terrorist attacks, but how many Americans could pick the director of Homeland Security out of a line-up anyway? You want to really demoralize people, take out an A-list Hollywood celebrity.)

Mr. Terrorist will kill Hotel Girl's father unless she calls her hotel (from the airplane) and moves Mr. Homeland Security into another suite in which it will be easier to kill him. She doesn't want to do this, but she doesn't want her father to die, so she weeps a lot and agrees not to alert the flight attendants. She does attempt to tip off her fellow passengers, leading to a scuffle in the bathroom, which 1. reveals a scar above her right breast and 2. catches the attention of a blond 11-year-old named Rebecca.

Hotel Girl places the call to her hotel, putting Mr. Homeland Security in harms way, though she doesn't want to, because she knows Mr. Homeland Security and he's "a really nice guy." (We see a brief clip of Mr. Homeland Security, all-American-handsome, with an attractive blond wife and two attractive blond children-- the archeotype of the American family.)

Then Hotel Girl tells Mr. Terrorist how she got the scar: she was raped in a parking lot. "For years, I've been telling myself one thing..." she begins. "That it was out of your control," Finishes Mr. Terrorist. "No, that I would never let it happen again!" So she stabs him in the neck with a pen. The plane has just landed, so Hotel Girl is able to quickly run off and escape into the airport. Mr. Terrorist, wounded but still frisky, tries to chase her. Luckily, little blond Rebecca is able to trip him with her duffle bag.

Mr. Terrorist chases Hotel Girl through the airport. (She never removes her high-heeled shoes, even though they make her trip and lose valuable time as she exits the moving walkway!) She escapes his clutches, gets into her SUV, and drives home to Daddy. Meanwhile, she calls the hotel again, on her cell phone, and is able to get Mr. Homeland Security and his blond loved ones out of their hotel room just before a some guys on a fishing boat, who look like WASPs but speak what sounds like Arabic, shoot a missile through Mr. Homeland Security's balcony. No one in the hotel is injured.

When Hotel Girl gets to Daddy's, the hitman is just moving through the door, so she runs him down with her tank-like vehicle. But (shocking!) Mr. Terrorist has followed her home and is already in the house! He chases her through it, and she tries to fight him off with various objects, while taking time to taunt him about his failed plans to kill the Teutonic-looking Homeland Security family. Eventually she finds a conveniently-placed gun, Daddy recovers consciousness, and the two of them kill Mr. Terrorist together. And everybody lives happily ever after (except the audience, most of whom now want their $6 back).

---Now, let's take a look at what this movie's REALLY saying, shall we?

1. Mr. Terrorist has been following Hotel Girl for months and knows her habits. Implication: That this is a normal terrorist tactic. The terrorists may be after YOU, too. A move to increase the audience's anxiety. Analysis: This is not very likely. In real life, terrorists seem to target generic "people," rather than specific individuals-- unless, maybe, those individuals have a heck of a lot of public visibility. They wouldn't waste their time shadowing Hotel Girl. But, you know who MIGHT want to shadow Hotel Girl, especially if she was involved in anti-war protesting or other "suspicious" activity? Our own government! It's all provided for in the Patriot Act.

2. Little blond Rebecca; the blond Homeland Security family. Only three children play a role in this film. All are blond. Mrs. Homeland Security, another "innocent intended-victim," is also blond. Analysis: Blondness is used to convey innocence, wholesomeness, and the typical "All-American family." Maybe I've spent too long in the wilds of East Germany, but I can't help see parallels with the Nazi use of blondness here.

3. Hotel Girl explains that she was raped. Mr. Terrorist says it was "beyond her control." She says that she cannot let it happen again. Analysis: This is a metaphor for 9-11. Hotel Girl is the innocent victim--America-- who was "raped." According to the movie, what is the correct response to the situation? Not to assume that it was "beyond her control," but that she "can't let it happen again." To prevent it from happening again, she must use pro-active violence: she stabs the terrorist in the neck. Ergo, to prevent "national rape" (terrorist attacks), we must commit violence against THEM first. (And of course we know who the terrorists are, since they oh-so-conveniently tell us! Just like Mr. Terrorist, who makes who he is and what he's up to explicitly clear.) I read this as a veiled attempt to justify the Iraq War-- which was started, ostensibly, for "Homeland Security reasons." Saddam (supposedly) "said" he was a terrorist, and to prevent another "national rape," we had to "stab him in the neck."

4. Hotel Girl takes out the hitman with her sport utility vehicle. Implication: Since the hitman is a terrorist, she is (by extension) using her SUV for "homeland security purposes." Drive your SUV to win the War on Terror! Never mind that all the gasoline you put into it will serve to enrich the Saudi royal family, some members of which appear to have been funneling money to terrorist organizations for decades!

5. Mr. Terrorist quite literally shows up in Hotel Girl's living room. Implication: They're everywhere; you can't get away. Not even your living room is safe! Analysis: This is intended to make the audience feel violated: perhaps to reawaken the feeling of violation experienced after 9-11.

6. The terrorists in this movie are easy to identify-- after all, they tell you exactly who they are-- and relatively easy to thwart. You can outrun them even without taking off your high heels! Implication: Real terrorists are easy to identify and to thwart, too. (So why haven't we found Osama yet?)

Some thoughts

I already shared most of this analysis with my parents, and they thought I was reading way too much into things. To quote my dad, "Sometimes a bad movie is a just a bad movie."

True. But sometimes it's a bad movie with a coded message. In this case, I think the key to the movie's real message is in the scene in which Hotel Girl discusses her rape with the terrorist (and stabs him): that, in order to prevent terrorism, we must use violence. That the proper way to keep 9-11 from happening again is to strike first. The problem is that real-life terrorists are not as easy to identify as the ones in this film. They don't tell you they're terrorists. And that this "striking first" philosophy can easily be used to justify aggression against just about any target-- all you have to do is convince the public that the intended target is a threat to "Homeland Security" first. Sort of like insisting that Iraq had, and was planning to use, weapons of mass destruction, and/or that there was a "direct link" between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Pay attention to the content of non-serious movies, the kind that people go to see when they just want to be "entertained" without having to think. In particular, pay attention to suspense films and other movies that play to viewers' emotions and use fear to disengage them from their critical thinking skills. These are great vehicles for propaganda-- because the writers bank on the idea that you will just sit back and allow yourself to be entertained, and never consider what ideas their product is really pushing.

The Best of Both Worlds

2005-07-21T22:28:00.000+02:00

Since my last post, I've successfully readjusted to Eastern Daylight Time, and (somewhat less successfully) readjusted to the ever-colorful sideshow that is daily life in the United States.

(Why is this "small" skirt falling off my hips? Why does that car display both 1.) a bumper sticker comparing the Internal Revenue Service to Nazis and 2.) handicap plates? Why is cheese so expensive? How come every program on television-- even the news-- assumes that viewers have the IQ of Forrest Gump?)

Culture shock notwithstanding, I'm glad to be back. It's nice to have virtually unlimited access to books written in English. (I enjoy reading in German too, of course, but in English it goes oh-so-much faster...) In the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time reading, partly because I'm a natural bookworm and that's what bookworms do, and partly because I'm unemployed, low on funds, and basically bored. Thank God for public libraries! (Also for Harry Potter.)

But enough rambling. The actual point of this entry is a list I've made, highlighting the best of both worlds: what Germany and the United States could learn from each other. (In no particular order.)

Things that Germany Does Better

1. Bread. Germany makes the best bread in the world, and it also produces more varieties of bread than any other country. Even the cheap, mass-produced stuff is made by real bakers who've gone through a three-year apprenticeship program. Granted, you can get good bread in the US, too-- but it's expensive, which is why so many Americans eat cheapy, spongy white mush.

2. Chocolate. Chocolate is less expensive in Germany, and it's better, and it comes in infinite varieties. Maple, blood orange, or blueberry yoghurt, anyone?

3. Cheese. The kind of cheese that Americans reserve for dinner parties and wine-tastings is everyday fare in Germany. Why? Because it's inexpensive. A wedge of brie that costs $3.99 American can be had for $.79 on the Mother Continent.

4. Public Transportation. Virtually all cities of 40,000 or more have their own train stations with regular (usually hourly) transport options. Buses and streetcars run where trains don't. Result? It's perfectly possible to lead a "normal" life without owning a car!

5. Knowledge of Foreign Languages. All Germans learn at least one foreign language (generally English, though in the former DDR it used to be Russian), usually beginning in the third or fourth grade. Lots of people take a second foreign language, and learning a third or fourth language is not uncommon. (In contrast, I doubt that more than 10% of the US population has more than a "tourist" command of a second language.)

6. Doner Kebabs. Like a gyro, only Turkish. This delicious and ubiquitous German fast food is entirely missing from the US. (Might I suggest a trade? You send us some Turkish immigrants so that we can have Doner stands, and we'll send you some Mexican immigrants who can teach you to make salsa properly.)

7. Clothing. First: when I say that Germans are better dressed, I basically mean West Germans, as should be clear from my previous entries. Really, Germans are not spectacular dressers-- they're not like the Italians, who put on $500 slacks to go grocery shopping-- it's just that they look so much better in comparison to Americans. Especially in summer, lots of middle-aged Americans wander around dressed like oversized nine-year-olds: jean shorts, baggy T-shirts with cartoon characters on them, and athletic shoes. (Not just at the beach. In restraurants, and at movie theaters.)

8. Health Care. Like most of the world, Germans subscribe to the belief that health care is a basic human right, and not a privilege for the rich. We're a bit backward in this respect.

9. Vacation Time. 4 weeks paid vacation are guaranteed by law. And, as generous as this sounds to Americans, it's actually standard in many countries. Germans are shocked when they hear that many Americans have no paid vacations at all and are even required to work on public holidays!

10. Public Television. German public TV is better funded; hence, it's of better quality.

11. Fewer Nut-Jobs. Germany has a few people who advocate for the common man's right to own an Uzi, or who don't accept Darwinian evolution, or who go door to door to try to convert you to their religion. But in Germany these people are looked upon as reactionary nuts akin to flat-earthers or the Branch Davidians. In the US, they run the government and are looked upon as pillars of the community.

12. Maintaining a Healthy Weight. Portion sizes are smaller and people get more exercise. So people are trimmer and healthier.

13. Classical Music. They have Bach, we have Sousa marches. There's really no comparison.

14. Environmental Friendliness. Recycling is mandated by law, grocery stores charge for bags (so most people bring their own reusable bags), gasoline costs around $7 a gallon (which encourages people to drive less and use transit more), electricity is pricy (which encourages conservation). They are now where we might be 20 years from now-- and then only if we can get a Democrat in office!

15. Attractive Cities. German cities are, on average, prettier than American ones. (Granted, a person who had seen only Chemnitz and San Francisco might not have this impression, but then, there are exceptions to every rule.) In addition, there is virtually no suburban sprawl. The countryside starts at the end of the city, town, or village-- densely populated residential street here, rye field/forest/meadow there, with no transitional McMansions between them.

16. Pedestrian- and Bicycle-Friendliness. There are pedestrian-only zones, sidewalks and bike lanes virtually everywhere in Germany. Many communities in the US are sidewalk-free, and if you use a bicycle as a means of transportation you're viewed as some kind of social deviant.

17. Not Being Homophobic. In Germany, gays and lesbians are fully integrated into society and can legally register domestic partnerships with most of the privileges of marriage. In the US, gays and lesbians get blamed for terrorist attacks perpetrated by frustrated heterosexual Middle Eastern males, and are faced with the prospect of Constitutionally-mandated second class status.

18. Beer. I don't drink beer, so I can't speak from personal experience, but almost everyone I know who does prefers the German kind. Germans think that American beer tastes like dishwater.

19. Taking It Easy. On Sundays and holidays, businesses shut down and almost no one has to work. Germans actually use these days for relaxation-- as opposed to going shopping, which is not the same thing.

20. Sense of Place. Germans are sentimentally attached to their home towns in a way that's quite rare in the US. Probably because many German families have lived in the same community (or even the same house!) for generations, if not for hundreds of years. There's more regional diversity in German, and more local traditions. Lubeck does not look like Munich, and the Black Forest is very distinct from the Lausitz. In contrast, American suburbs in Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Colorado look pretty much the same.

Things that the U.S. Does Better

1. The University System. Our university system is more intellectually rigorous, especially at the graduate level, and especially especially in the sciences. This is why Germany is now attempting to restructure its "Unis" along U.S. lines!

2. Integration of Ethnic and Religious Minorities. Citizenship laws aside, there is an unwritten rule that in order to be considered German, you have to be northwestern European and (at least nominally) Christian. (My students never really grasped that in the US, black people and Jews aren't considered "foreign." ) Both the United States and Germany encouraged immigration at certain points in their histories. But while the US encouraged the immigrants to settle down and helped their children to integrate into society, Germans avoided them socially and encouraged them to return home. (Most didn't.) Result: while we aren't perfect either, we have a much less ghettoized society.

3. Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. They're less expensive here, bigger, often more flavorful, and available year-round. Germany lacks our secret weapon. (California.)

4. Salsa and Barbecue Sauce. Both German salsa and German barbecue sauce have the consistency of ketchup and don't taste much different from it. I plan to bring jars of the American version over with me for next year. (Tip for expats: German barbecue sauce can be greatly improved if you mix it with German mustard!)

5. Popular Music. My (German) students listen to cheesy pop; my students' American peers listen to indie rock. My parents listen to Bruce Springsteen; their German peers listen to Schlager. No further comment is necessary.

6. Service in Stores. American salespeople smile and tell you to have a nice day. (East) German salespeople scowl and bark at you.

7. All-Around Friendliness. An adjective that Germans often use for residents of the English speaking world is scheissfreundlich, meaning "shit-friendly." This means that we say "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome;" we apologize if we bump into strangers on the street; we open doors for people (especially if they're on crutches, or have their hands full, or are elderly); and that if you walk past a person on a quiet residential street (or share an elevator with them), you're supposed to acknowledge them with eye contact, a quick smile, or a "hello" --even if you don't know them well. While we think of this as good manners, Germans see it as superficiality. Perhaps they're right... but it's a lot more pleasant to be smiled at by strangers than to be scowled at. The German attitude of indifference (or outright aggression) to strangers causes their society a lot of unnecessary stress.

8. Volunteering. From what I've seen, Germans don't really have a concept of volunteering or public service as we understand it in the US (or in Britain, for that matter). Ordinary citizens don't help out at soup kitchens or animal shelters on their days off-- as Germans see it, that's what the government and paid employees of private charities are for. In a way it's a logical side-effect of their well-developed welfare system, but it still strikes me as kind of sad. Germans care about their acquaintances deeply, but don't seem to care as much about the well-being of strangers as Americans do. In a way, it's like their attitude is that social problems are concern you only if you're directly affected by them, or if you're a social worker.

9. Personal Hygiene. Welcome to America, land of the well-scrubbed! While the stereotype of the smelly European is (mostly) wrong, we still have the upper hand in the hygiene arena. Almost all Americans shower daily, wash their hair at least every other day, and put on fresh clothes every day (not just when they smell strongly or are stained). Say what you like about Americans, but opening classroom windows in January to let in fresh air because the pupils stink is rarely necessary.

10. Hair. Here I'm mainly talking about East Germany. West Germans' hairstyles, from what I've seen, don't differ too significantly from what you see in the US. But, oh, do we have better hair than the Ossis! East Germany is Mullet-Land, and the place where every female between ten and seventy has dyed her hair one or more weird day-glo color (usually at the same time). In addition, the East has recently pioneered two new Hair Don'ts: the "Mullet-Flip," which is a mullet flipped up at the bottom (sort of like Marilyn Quayle's "style"), and the "Mullet Mohawk" (use your imagination).

11. Old Farmhouses. Much as I loathe McMansions (with or without fries), I'm a sucker for American farmhouses. You know what I mean: simple two-story wood-frame houses with wood siding (freshly painted... or maybe not!), big porches, and well-hidden detached garages. They're like the Shaker aesthetic: "simple, substantial, and beautiful." German houses, in contrast, leave me cold. Stucco-coated cinderblocks don't do much for me. (Note to European readers: No, our wood-construction houses are not hard to keep warm in winter! You'd be amazed at what one can do with fiberglass insulation.)

12. Discouraging Smoking. In Germany, if you manage to find a restaurant with a non-smoking section (good luck!), don't be shocked to see people lighting up at the next table over. Don't be shocked by the smoking lounge at the school (in some places, it's also for the students!), the cigarette vending machines on every corner, or the cigarette commercials before every movie in the theatre. If you work in a school, don't be shocked by the much higher percentage of kids who smoke-- even those cute little seventh-graders!

13. Flexibility. Germans are rigid. They do not cope well with changes in circumstances. This is why, when Germans lose their jobs, they will draw unemployment checks for years rather than relocate (sell the house? you can't be serious!) or find another line of work. This is also why my former boss (an extremely rigid person, even for a German) kept two of her colleagues at work for five hours to supervise the students during a strike-- although no students had actually shown up for school that day.

14. Gender Equality. There are still strong cultural assumptions that 1. all women want to be mothers (though if you look at the actual birthrate, this is ludicrous!) and 2. mothers should not work. And there's very little legal protection against gender-based workplace discrimination. Welcome to the US circa 1973, or to Germany today! An American woman with children who also has a job is not labeled a "raven mother." She doesn't have to wait five years to get her kids into a reputable day care center. And prospective employers can't ask her whether she has kids, whether she's pregant, or married, or plans to encorporate either pregnancy or marriage into her future. German women aren't so lucky.

15. Early Childhood Education. Just about all US kids attend kindergarten (free and usually compulsory), in effect beginning school at age 5. Many also go to preschool at age 3 or 4-- we even have large-scale programs offering free preschool to children from poor families! In contrast, only a minority of German kids have attended any type of school before they start first grade. At age seven. And when they do go to preschool, they don't learn start learning the alphabet or pre-reading skills. Preschools are strictly places to learn social skills and to play.

16. Natural Beauty. Let's see here: we have the Painted Desert, they have "Saxon Switzerland." We have actual rainforests along the northwest coast, including several primeval forests (i.e., they have never been logged); Europe has only one primeval forest-- and that's in Poland! We have the Rockies; they have the Alps (ok, so maybe this one is comparable). We have the Great Lakes, they have the Bodensee (a.k.a. "Lake Constance"). I'd say we beat them hands-down.

17. Public Libraries. Public libraries in the US will not ask you for a membership fee. And public libraries in Germany will probably not organize Summer Reading Clubs or Story Time for your children.

18. Social Mobility. You are ten years old and in the fourth grade. Your name is Fabian, or perhaps Anna, or Aziza, or Mehmet. You live in the Ruhrgebiet. Both of your parents left school after completing the ninth-grade. Your father is a steelworker, and your mother is a housewife. Next year you will begin attending the Hauptschule, in affect condemning you, too, to leave school after nine years and become something like a steelworker or a housewife. In theory, the decision to send you to the Hauptschule was based on your abilities. But little Susanne, whose grades were only slightly better than yours, will be going on to the Realschule. Her father is an accountant. And Felix, whose grades are about the same as Susanne's, will attend the Gymnasium (college-preparatory school). His parents are a business executive and a pediatrician. ---Social mobility is limited everywhere. But the child of blue-color workers in the US (or Britain, or Norway, etc.) has a much better chance of attending university than the child of blue-color workers in Germany.

19. Optimism. An American magazine might run an article entitled "The Ten Best Things about Public Education Today." A German magazine would be more likely to run an article like "Ten Good Things about Public Education--- Do They Exist?" Americans are a sunny people. We insist that the situation in Iraq is improving even when the country is going to hell in a handbasket. We look for the silver lining on dark rainclouds. Germans interject that this "silver lining" is probably radioactive. Really, they're probably right. But all that gloominess gets tiresome.

20. Macaroni and Cheese. We have it, they don't. Yes, this is trite and insubstantial. But bear in mind that I had my mother ship several dozen boxes to me while I was overseas. Indulge me!

Reverse Culture Shock

2005-07-12T16:13:00.000+02:00

I almost typed "Reverse Culture Schock" into the heading. Which, really, is an excellent example of what's going on here.

I arrived back in the States a week ago, but I think it would be overstating things to say that I've readjusted, other than at the biochemical level. (The jet lag's been under control for two or three days now.) Home has never felt so foreign.

I've been overseas before, but never for more than eight weeks at a time. When I returned from those shorter trips I had "reverse culture shock" too, but it mainly amounted to suddenly noticing how BIG everything is in the US: the vehicles are mostly SUVs; the houses are typically McMansions, Mini-McMansions, and McMansions Deluxe (with or without fries); the residential streets in my parents' subdivision have four lanes; the grocery stores could easily accomodate 15 of the Penny-Markt in my village; the butt cheeks are XXXL and still expanding.

This time the phenomenon is more pervasive.

Take language, for example.

English is my native language. I started speaking it when I was roughly nine months old (first word: "dada"), and as my relatives can attest, apart from pauses for breath I haven't stopped since. On the other hand, I didn't start learning German until I was 19. So it's natural that I have English interference in my German.

But why do I now have German interference in my English? It's subtle, but it's there. I forget which prepositions go with certain set phrases. I produce my L's on the ridge of gums instead of the backs of my top teeth. I try to use German idioms in English. (Asking, for example, "Is your job in order?") And I find myself forgetting what objects, places, and people are called so often that I worried that I'd developed premature Alzheimer's Disease until my friend Kim, who was an exchange student, reassured me. "You're just not used to thinking in English anymore."

Written English isn't much better. When I should type "sh," "sch" comes out. And since I got so used to German keyboards while I was there, I consistently mis-type words with "y"s and "z"s in them (the keys are reversed in Germany) and have trouble finding certain punctuation marks. Reading is slightly affected as well. Yesterday I was at a store, and when the check-out girl rang up one of the beads I was buying at 7 cents, I thought she had overcharged me. I was pretty sure that that particular bead cost 1 cent: the bin it came out of was hand-labeled with a vertical line with a diagonal flag on it (a one, in other words), followed by the cent sign. Then I remembered that Americans write their sevens that way.

Up until 10 months ago, I wrote my sevens that way!!!

I fear that I'll end up like ID, my former German professor. She grew up in a dorf near Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, but spent three years in Germany in her twenties and thirties. Now she speaks English with a distinctly foreign accent and overuses the word "raunchy." New students and the counter people at Starbucks are always asking her what country she's from. Then she has to glare at them and tell them that she's from Idaho, and they get really disappointed.

Reverse culture shock (or "schock") is not confined to the linguistic arena. Other stuff is affected as well-- in both senses of the word "affected." Like when my parents took me out to eat for my birthday, and I felt the need to hold my utensils European-style (knife in one hand, fork in the other, for the duration of the meal). I wasn't trying to look "continental" or impress anyone, I just would have felt uncomfortable eating American-style knowing that people were watching me. As if they would have judged me, though they were all eating American-style themselves. I've been traumatized by being stared at in German restaurants, I guess.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very happy to be home. It's just that home is now very confusing. I know that I'm an American, but I don't always feel or behave the way that Americans are supposed to. I feel like I'm taking a pleasant vacation in a foreign country, rather than returning to the country that I lived in for the first 23 years of my life. As Kim put it, quoting one of her teachers from high school, "Welcome to the 'This-Is-Not-My-Country Club."

Life after Dorf

2005-07-09T23:44:00.000+02:00

As you may have gathered from the change in the "location" information at the top of my blog, I'm back in Michigan now. Nine days ago I successfully escaped my village for once and for all. There was none of the bittersweet feeling that usually overwhelms me when I have to leave a place I've lived in behind. I was thrilled to get ouf of there: absolutely beaming. It's such a relief to know that I never, ever have to go back to that dorf again.

No more running into my evil host family at the grocery store! No more narrow-minded, anal-retentive boss! No more going weeks without having a good conversation in person! No more dodging the Neo-Nazi morons in front of the school! I'm free! I'm free! I'm free!

Ok. You get the point.

So now I'll tell you about what's been going on since then.

Mr. A drove me to the train station in Bautzen on the morning of July 1st. I took the train from there to Hannover. I had to change twice, in Dresden and Leipzig. This was unfortunate because my luggage weighed more than me and DDR-era train stations don't even have escalators, let alone elevators. So I had to haul my big suitcase (a.k.a. "The Monster"), its smaller companion ("Little Monster"), my overstuffed backpack, and my laptop up the stairs manually, taking multiple trips. It took me 15 minutes to get from Platform 1 to Platform 3 in Dresden Neustadt!

Hannover was fantastic. I came for a friend's wedding, which was held on July 2nd. I liked the wedding a lot. Some of the cheesier wedding customs found in the US aren't practiced in Germany, and my friend and her husband dispensed with those that are. So, no one gave the bride away-- a custom that's always bothered me, since it essentially turns the ceremony back into a property exchange--, no embarassing-to-watch tongue kissing in the church (or at the reception), no bouquet toss, no garter removal, no drunken speeches by the best man (or anyone else), and while there was dancing, it was blessedly optional. This wedding was, in short, tasteful. And since a bunch of cool people were seated with me at the reception, I had quite a good time.

And of course, it was just nice to see my friend again!

After spending three days in Hannover I headed to Berlin. I arrived kind of late in the day and was tired from hauling around The Monster again, so I didn't do much in the city, though I did meet a Stammtisch buddy for dinner. (She'll be working at a summer camp there for a couple of weeks.)

The following morning I flew home. This was kind of an exasperating process.

The taxi-driver who picked me up from my hotel wasn't your typical big, burly type. I think I got the only taxi in Berlin operated by a tiny little Turkish woman (my height!) who couldn't even lift my suitcases into the car without help, let alone move them from the curb to the trunk for me. It was raining buckets at the time, so my stuff all got wet. Making matters worse, she also dropped me off at the wrong end of the terminal, so I had to haul my monstrous luggage several hundred yards to get to the appropriate check-in desk. (Without a cart. They all seemed to be in use...) When I reached the line for said desk, the elderly Brazilian woman in front of me half-asked, half-ordered me to let her traveling companions (a half-dozen other elderly Brazilians, each with a large luggage cart) cut in front of me. This meant that I had to walk about 15 feet further, which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but I felt like I was about to collapse. So I was a bit put out.

The Monster was 6 grams under the weight limit.

My first flight (Berlin-Frankfurt) was a half-hour delayed. Already running late, I lost more time waiting for my second boarding pass to print-- for some weird reason, they couldn't give me both passes when I checked in in Berlin. I made it to the boarding area for my Frankfurt-Detroit flight with only 15 minutes to spare.

The second flight was uneventful, except for a 3-year-old Syrian boy sitting directly across the aisle from me who screamed and punched his mother for nine hours straight.

I arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport at about 4:30 and had no trouble getting through customs, because I could say the magic word ("Fulbright"). My mom and my friend Kim met me in the waiting area. I was, of course, really happy to see them! After a brief hassle with an evil, troll-like parking attendant, I could FINALLY go home!

And here I am.

(More soon on what I've been doing since I got back.)

Leaving the Village

2005-06-29T10:07:00.000+02:00

Counting today, I have two days left in my village. Friday morning I'll take a train to Hannover to go to a friend's wedding, and then next Tuesday I fly home (out of Berlin).

I'm ready to leave. The Lausitz is beautiful, sometimes breathtakingly so, like when I walk along the paths through the barley fields at sunlight... but it isn't home. I love Germany, but I'm not crazy about eastern Saxony. To be perfectly honest, I didn't like living here very much. I've been too lonely. But, still, I think that living in a rural village for a year was a good experience. Now I'll try to tell you something about what it was like.

Since November, I have lived in a village of about 1,000 souls, part of a Gemeinde (like a township) consisting of 15 villages, with a total population of around 5,000. The village I live in is by far the biggest in the area. It includes, among other things:
-an elementary school and a secondary school
-two bakeries
-two butcher shops
-a couple of small, diner-type restaurants
-two tiny grocery stores
-a shoe store
-a doctor's office, a dentist, and a physical therapist
-one fast-food place (Turkish)

But it also includes chickens running around in people's yards, the occasional sheep or goat, a couple of cows, a handful of horsedrawn carriages proceeding down the main street on Sunday mornings, massive vegetable gardens in every yard, and fields of barley, wheat, and rye in between the residential streets.

At least half of the residents seem to be over 50. If you wanted to get rich in this village, you could open a store that stocked Kittelschürzen, a kind of flowered smock favored by German grandmothers. There are also some families with young kids, but virtually no one between 18 and 35.

Most of the residents were born in this village, or in one of the smaller surrounding villages, and have lived here all their lives. They prefer their own company and are suspicious of 'outsiders' of any kind, including Catholic Sorbs from the next Gemeinde over and mountain people from the Oberland south of Bautzen. Foreigners are viewed as locust-like pests who descend to take their jobs. Dark-skinned foreigners are viewed as 'dirty.'

A small group of Neo-Nazis likes to congregate in front of the school where I work around dismissal time. The local administration claims they can't do anything about this, since the boys are former students and there is, they say, no proof that they are Nazis. --I don't know what the litmus test for Naziism is, but seeing as these kids have shaved heads and wear racist T-shirts, listen to racist music, put anti-foreigner posters and graffiti up on a shed belonging to the elementary school, and shout 'Foreigner!' at me when I walk by them, I don't see how it's possible to come to a different conclusion... But, around here, they would probably have to march through the streets bearing posters of Hitler before anyone would admit there was a problem.

East Saxony is to Germany what the rural South is to the US, complete with it's own Good Old Boy network.

The widespread xenophobia and racism seems almost comical once you consider that, to my knowledge, I am the only non-German person living in this town. There are also two Turkish guys who work at the fast-food place, but they live somewhere else (and I don't blame them). I have never seen a non-white person in the village. (And, despite what the locals think, Turks are white!) I frequently go months without seeing a black person. Then, when I do, I can't help but stare. And grin. After months of uniform paleness, a bit of diversity is very refreshing.

I have lived in this region for only 10 months total, but I already know almost all residents of my village on sight. When I see someone new (which isn't very often), I wonder who they are and what they're doing here. Going to Bautzen is sometimes overwhelming, because of all the new people.

It seems that I'm starting to absorb aspects of the local mentality. This scares me. I like the countryside and the peace and quiet. The mentality-- not so much.

It'll be good to go home.

On Becoming a Foreigner

2005-06-21T08:06:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I got an email from a prospective Fulbrighter who will be TA-ing in Saxony next year. She asked me to give her some tips on what to bring along and what to expect culturally. Answering the first question was easy: plenty of medium-weight clothes, an umbrella, American measuring cups, and a jar of salsa (the German kind has the consistency of ketchup). The second question was hard.

Culture shock is very difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it thoroughly. By thoroughly, I mean “having lived in a foreign country for at least six months.” Vacationing abroad is not the same. It can give you a taste of another culture (and a taste is much better than nothing) but you usually return home before the glamor wears off and the details of daily life begin to overwhelm you. Tourists don’t get to know other countries the way the resident foreigners do.

When you move to another country, you become a foreigner. Your ways are strange; the other country’s ways of doing things are “normal.”

Suddenly, many things you’ve taken for granted since childhood are different:

The grocery stores are filled with unfamiliar brands and products. Some items you’re used to eating at home (like boxed macaroni and cheese, hommus, and decent salsa) are missing all together; others are three times as expensive as in the US. Other sorts of stores also take some getting used to-- the drug store doesn’t sell school supplies, and to get prescription drugs you have to go the pharmacy, which doesn’t stock toothpaste or shampoo or develop photos. Nothing is open after 8pm on week nights, and everything shuts down on Sundays and legal holidays.

Houses don’t have central thermostats. Each room is heated separately with a grate-like device. Refrigerators are smaller. Door knobs, light switches, locks, and even the flush mechanisms for toilets are different. People will think you’re weird if you walk around the house without slippers.

Streets are narrower. There is no speed limit on the highway. When you use public transportation, you'll find that the procedure for buying a ticket on the bus differs from that in the city you went to college in back home. You find this out when you try to do it the American way and get yelled at by the bus driver.

Standards of hygiene are different. Houses are kept immaculate—even the bedrooms of teenage kids!—but many people only shower every other day and wash their hair only once or twice a week. It’s perfectly acceptable to wear the same clothes to work or school three days in a row.

Values are different. Kids can smoke and drink legally at 16 and are usually allowed to have their boyfriends and girlfriends spend the night. Sex scenes on TV are ubiquitous, regardless of the time of day. Educated people make racist statements at work that would get them fired in the US. But weapons, war, and violence of any kind are condemned much more strongly than they would be in the States. And despite their generally intolerant attitudes, I haven't heard of any East Germans lobbying to amend their Constitution to deny people's human right to marry.

Manners and social expectations are different. Being friendly toward strangers is considered superficial. At best, you’ll be treated with a kind of polite formality; at worst, people can be very cold and downright aggressive. The natives will strike you as rude sometimes, and you’ll also seem rude to them: you’ll address someone by the wrong word for “you,” or forget to shake a colleague’s hand, or ask a question that seems like harmless small-talk to you but in the context of German society is considered socially inappropriate.

Perfect strangers will interrogate you about your political views. Some people will assume that if you are American, you must also be a heavily armed, SUV-driving fundamentalist Christian who is chomping at the bit to forcibly overthrow the governments of Iran and North Korea. Some people will express surprise that, as an American, you are neither fat nor stupid. Some people will simply hate you.

Then there’s the language barrier. Even if you have an excellent command of German, occasionally people will use words you don’t understand and you’ll have to ask for clarification. This may lead them to think that you don’t speak the language at all. You will also run into people who, upon hearing your accent, start shouting at you as if you were deaf or using a simplified, grammatically incorrect form of German. “Du gehen morgen Essen kaufen, ja? Essen kaufen?” (rough translation: “You goes tomorrow buy food, right? Buy food?”)

Being a foreigner is a stressful business.

There will be times when you want to go home. You would do anything for a chimichanga or a pan of cornbread. You think that if one more bus driver or postal worker yells at you for doing things the wrong way (which is to say, a non-German way), you will either call him every name in the book or burst into tears. You miss your friends, your family, and your dog. You wish you never came over here.

But then, when you reflect on it a while, you realize that it was worth it.

There are some things you can only learn as a foreigner, like the ability to function well in two cultures. Your foreign language skills will improve by leaps and bounds—even if they were good to begin with! You will learn new ways of doing things; develop new tastes in food, music, clothes, and freetime activities; and most importantly, you’ll realize in a way that most people don’t that all cultures have their good sides and bad sides. You cannot idealize a foreign country after you’ve lived in it, but you cannot despise it, either.

America is not the greatest country in the world. Neither is Germany. There is no greatest country in the world. There are only scores of countries with their own ways of doing things, each with their own unique good points and bad points.

Would I do it again? Definitely.

More Info about Next Year

2005-06-15T10:43:00.000+02:00

I should probably apologize for the lack of posts this month. It's not that I haven't wanted to write; I just haven't had much time. The school year may be almost over (I have two and a half weeks left here, and the kids are here until mid-July), but things are definitely NOT winding down. Oh no. Between three-hour teachers' meetings (that other TAs don't have to attend), correcting tests (something my contract says I'm actually not supposed to do), working 14 hours a week at the school (2 more than I'm obligated to by contract), and prepping for lessons (still takes me about 10 hours every week!), I've had my hands full.

Well, ok, enough whining. You want to know what's going to happen to me next year!

I'm happy to report that the second year of Ada Abroad will be spent at a Gymnasium (college-prep secondary school, grades 5-13) in the city of.... Hamm!

I think I can tell you the name of the town this time because it's a bigger place-- it has at least eight secondary schools, so I just won't reveal the name of the one that I'll be working at. And more importantly, it has a train station. So I won't be stranded there on the weekends. Plus, while there is no university in Hamm itself, there are two college towns only 30 minutes away by train: Dortmund and Münster. I'm planning to apply to Uni Münster. The Fulbright Commission will even try to get the tuition fees waived for me, but that's not for sure yet because next year I'll just be an alumna, not a current grantee.

Before you go laughing at the name of my town, you should know that it's pronounced 'hahm,' not 'ham.' And that the German word for the pork product is actually Schinken.

Here's the link to the town's website: www.hamm.de It's mostly in German, but I think there's some info in English for you monolinguals.

Anyhow, I fly back to Michigan on July 5th and will be staying there until September 7th, when I head back to Germany. The only reasonably-priced flight I could find leaves from Toronto and lands in Amsterdam, so there will be some train travel involved, but I'm just happy that I didn't have to spend upwards of $900 for my ticket! (I paid about $360-- a pretty good deal.)

I'll try to post again soon. But in any case-- see you back in the States!

The England Trip

2005-05-25T10:13:00.000+02:00

I spent last week in England with about 40 ninth-graders from my school, Mr. A, my infamous Boss, and assorted mother-types. Theoretically I was a chaperone, but the kids ignored my pretense of authority and lit up right in front of me (they weren’t supposed to smoke on the trip), so I ended up more or less as a participant.

For the most part, the trip was fantastic.

Our chartered bus left the village at about 8 p.m. and reached the French port of Calais right around 9 a.m. the following morning. I was so tired that I gladly forked over 2 British pounds (roughly four bucks American) for a cup of cappuccino on the ferry. (This says a lot, because I only drink coffee when I really need it, and I’m also notoriously cheap.) The ferry ride took an hour and a half. It didn’t sink, which is a good thing, because the water in the Channel looked really cold.

The first thing we did after reaching England was to drive to Stonehenge, which was actually several hours out of our way, but well worth seeing. In my opinion, at least. Admission was not included in our tour package. Since most of my traveling companions are not history buffs, they elected to save their pounds for something more practical. Like jester hats with the Union Jack on them, for example. Anyhow, I thought Stonehenge was incredible. It wasn’t as big as I expected, but still really impressive, especially when you consider how old it is (already in ruins when the Romans arrived in Britain!) and how long it took to build (hundreds of years!). The oldest temple in the world, and right next to it is a barrow—a tomb of an ancient British chieftain. Literally awe-inspiring! I wish I could have spent more time there.

My Boss and her son also forked over the admission fee. Frankly, I wish they hadn’t. I saw her taking a picture of him from an angle that made it look like he was holding up one of the lintel stones. Even though we weren’t walking together, I was still embarrassed by them. I think this illustrates a difference between them and me: some people appreciate the wonders of the Ancient World, and other people take stupid tourist pictures of them!

The following day was spent in London. Theoretically, at least. In reality it was spent on the tour bus. Our schedule called only for a bus tour of the city and a trip to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian. I’m not a big fan of bus tours in any case—I’d rather walk around and explore on my own—but lousy bus tours are even worse. And this bus tour ended up being lousy, because the tour company cleverly scheduled our London visit for the day when the Queen was opening the new session of Parliament. Result—almost all of the streets near major sites were blocked off. No Buckingham Palace, no Parliament building, not even Herrods! We did see Big Ben for about 30 seconds—from at least 2 miles away. Greenwich was all right, though. Especially the Indian restaurant. After months of German blandness, I needed some curry!

One of the neatest things about England was being in a multicultural society again. Rural East Germany is extremely ethnically homogenous—I literally go weeks at a time without seeing any non-white people. I grew up in a suburb with a large South Asian community and then went to college in a mostly-black town, so this is really weird for me. The best way I can explain it is that the lack of diversity is like walking around in a building in which all of the walls have been painted white. It’s boring, and it depresses me. England was colorful—South Asians, East Asians, Afro-Caribbeans, you name it! Like visiting another building with murals painted all over the walls.

The rest of our trip went better than the London excursion did.

On Wednesday we went hiking along the cliffs of Beachy Head on the south coast. The weather was fantastic, and the scenery was spectacular. The cliffs are made of chalk, virtually vertical, and drop down 50 feet or so into the sea. On the other side there is gorgeous countryside: rolling hills covered with sheep, cows, and little cottages.

We went to Portsmouth on Thursday and spent the day at various nautical-themed museums, which were quite interesting—even for hard-to-please 15-year-olds! We also toured the HMS Victory, the 18th-century battleship that won the battle of Trafalgar. It’s restored so that you can see how it would have looked when it was still being actively used—complete with rats and maggoty hardtack.

Friday, our last day in England, was spent in Brighton. First we went to the SeaLife exhibit, which was kind of disappointing. It was aimed at an elementary-aged audience, and the admission fee was quite high. Then—free time! Finally. The first thing I did was check out the Royal Pavilion, a palace built by King George IV. According the brochure, it is “decorated in the Chinese taste.” “The Chinese taste” has nothing to do with the taste of actual Chinese people—it refers to 18th century British aristocrats’ ideas of what China ought to look like. And good grief, was it tacky! But interesting to see, all the same. I spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to shop. Friday was my dad’s birthday and I wanted to get him a present. Unfortunately, while Brighton has some really neat stores, everything I saw was way out of my price range.

The ferry ride back brought some unwanted excitement. One of my students, who I’ll call “Maik,” violated the no-alcohol contract that all the kids had to sign, in a major way. Maik is in the ninth grade Hauptschule (remedial track), but he just turned 18—this may tell you something about his mentality and/or academic potential. Anyhow, being 18, he’s just old enough to purchase booze in Britain. And on British-run ferries. So he did—for himself, and for some younger classmates. One of his classmates ratted him out to Mr. A afterward. So, Maik was ordered off the bus and not allowed to get back on until the kids he bought for stepped forward with their beverages. Thankfully, they did so promptly.

One major difference between German and American schools—to the best of my knowledge, no further action will be taken against Maik and his buddies. Something similar happened on a class trip when I was a senior in high school, and everyone involved was expelled! That wouldn’t go over well in Germany, because the societal attitude toward kids and alcohol is totally different. While Maik’s little friends were underage in Britain, both of them are 16, so they can drink legally in Germany. Even the fact that they signed a contract probably wouldn’t impress their parents. The German attitude toward rules is also very different. Germany is a very legalistic society—there are laws and regulations for just about everything. But, the dirty little secret is that most of these laws are rarely enforced (like the law forbidding smoking for youths under 16, for example). American society has fewer regulations, but we take the ones we do have more seriously. If the school were to threaten to expel Mike, his parents would be up in arms. “Come on, all he did was purchase alcohol for minors! What’s the harm in that?” And the community would support them, not the school.

Sometimes I just have to shake my head.

I'm In!!!

2005-05-23T12:52:00.000+02:00

Good news!

When I got back from my trip to England (more on that soon, I promise) an envelope from the Pedagogical Exchange Service was waiting for me. My reapplication was accepted, and I'm be spending a second year as a TA in Germany. Next year I'll be in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. (For those of you who aren't up on your German geography, that's in the northwestern part of the country, bordering the Low Countries. It's the most heavily populated state, and has the highest concentration of university towns.) I don't know the name of my future school yet or which city I'll be in, but should find out within the next couple of weeks.
I'm hoping for a Gymnasium (college preparatory school) in a university city.

I still plan to head home to Michigan for July and August, so I'll see at least some of you then!

Woo-hoo!

No News

2005-05-12T12:08:00.000+02:00

Once again I've been a lazy blogger and haven't written for a while. This time I have a different excuse: not too busy, no medical emergencies... I've just plain been too nervous.

As most of you know, I applied to renew my contract and spend a second year as a teaching assistant in Germany. (Not at the same school, not in a village, and preferably not within bicycling distance of the Polish border-- I requested to be placed in a university city in the west next time.) When I submitted my application in February, they told me that they would make the decisions about renewals in early May, and that if I didn't receive anything from the organization by mid-May to contact them.

Well, it's May 12th. That's mid-May in my book. And I haven't gotten any news. Every day I check the windowsill outside my apartment several times (since I don't have a real mailbox, that's where the landlords leave my mail). No news. Yesterday I went ahead and emailed the Pedagogical Exchange Service (the organization responsible for the application process). I asked them to please contact me soon, even if all they can tell me at this point is when I might expect the real letter. So today I've been checking my email about as often as a chain smoker lights up. No news.

Is no news good news? Maybe. But it could also be bad news. There is the distinct possibility that they contacted the winners first, and that those of us in the remainders bin are the only ones sitting around waiting for further information.

I have a friend in Bonn who also reapplied. She hasn't heard anything yet, either, but then it's not as important to her-- her boyfriend was accepted to a similar program in Austria next year, and she thinks they'll probably pick Austria over Germany. And since the Pedagogical Exchange Service is also located in Bonn, this might imply that they just haven't mailed any of the letters yet. (The German postal service is a little slower than USPS, but it's not that bad. )

This is as bad as waiting to hear from Fulbright was last year. Maybe worse. You see, if the renewal falls through, I don't really have a back-up plan. Unless you count 'live with your parents and work at some crappy office job that could be performed just as well by someone with an IQ of 85, while simultaneously attempting to convince various Germanic Linguistics programs that you're still promising.' Not my idea of fun...

Although it would still beat the hell out of spending the rest of my life in this village.

Ye Olde Traditional Witch-Burning

2005-05-04T10:50:00.000+02:00

What I’m reading: Ulla Hahn’s Das verborgene Wort (fantastic! and the dialogue is in Kölsch dialect!); Lexikon der untergegangenen Sprachen

What I’m eating: vegetarian cevapcici (like meatballs, except they’re sticks) with tzatziki sauce, cucumbers, and millet

I attended a witch-burning in the neighboring village last weekend.

This quaint custom, which dates back to a simpler and smellier time, is reenacted faithfully each April 30th. Each year the peasants of Lusatia round up religious dissidents, uppity women, and unpopular local schoolteachers. These lucky folks are tied to stakes perched above 15-foot-high mounds of brushwood and thatch, which is then set ablaze. The screams echo throughout the countryside.

Just kidding, of course. The witch-burning (German Hexenbrennen) is real, but my description of it was fictional. Rather than burning real people, they use old clothes stuffed with newspapers. Local kids make the “witches” and set them up on the pyre during the afternoon. Then, when it starts to get dark, they parade through the town with lanterns and torches. The volunteer fire department is responsible for containing the blaze and keeping the crowd a safe distance away.

According to the locals, Hexenbrennen actually has nothing to do with the “Burning Times” of the Middle Ages—it’s a pre-Christian custom, and the effigies represent winter. (Everyone’s sick of winter by May, so why not pretend to burn it alive?)

I wasn’t kidding about the 15-foot-high mounds of brushwood and thatch, though. That’s real! These were the biggest fires that I’d ever seen! They were easily 20 feet in diameter. The flames extended at least 10 feet over the top of the pyres, and the sparks shot 75 feet into the air. In addition, there were firecrackers buried inside the mound. (I freaked out when they went off, because I wasn’t expecting fireworks and for a second I thought it was gunfire.) The spectacle was incredible, as was the heat.

If you're ever in the area on April 30th, I highly recommend checking it out!

It Hits

2005-04-26T09:28:00.000+02:00

American ex-pats in Germany are a fairly diverse bunch. We represent all ages, races, religions, and political persuasions. But there is one thing that unites us: a passionate hatred of Schlager.

Schlager is a specifically German genre of music. The name Schlager comes from the verb schlagen, meaning “to hit.” This leads some foreigners to the mistaken impression that the word Schlager simple means “a hit,” but this is not the case—while some Schlager are (regrettably) hits, not every hit is a Schlager (thank God). The German word for “hit,” in the American sense? It’s Hit, actually—the slogan of a local radio station in Bautzen is “Hit für Hit, ein Hit!” (“Hit for hit, it’s a hit!”)

My theory is that Schlager got its name because when you hear it, you are overcome by the need to hit the singer, or, if that’s not possible, to be hit over the head with a heavy object until you are put out of your misery.

So, what is Schlager, exactly? Let’s start with adjectives I’ve heard other ex-pats use to describe it: “horrible,” “nasty,” “wretched,” “pathetic,” “crappy,” and even “infernal.”

I started with adjectives because Schlager is actually kind of hard to explain to people who haven’t heard it. There’s no precise equivalent in the Anglo-American cultural sphere. It’s music your grandparents would listen to—but not the good stuff like Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole. And a lot of Schlager fans are nowhere near old enough to be your grandparents. It’s what might have happened to popular music if Chuck Berry and his buddies had never invented rock and roll. And, finally, the best description I can give: if Barry Manilow and Paul Anka sang in German, they would sing Schlager.*

Both of them are much more popular in Germany than in the States, incidentally. There was a segment on Paul Anka on Kulturzeit the other day, and at least once a day the local morning show plays Barry Manilow’s “Mandy.” The song was so big here that for a few years, Mandy was one of the most popular names for East German girls.

So, I suppose that Schlager could be loosely compared to “easy listening.” Except that Schlager enjoys a greater popularity, across a much broader age range, than easy listening does. And of course, Schlager is much, much worse.

I have a suspicion that Schlager is more popular here in the former Soviet-occupied zone than in West Germany, but I haven’t spent enough time on that side of the country to be sure. I do know, though, that in additional to pan-German Schlager, there are also specifically East German Schlager. Sample title: “Ein himmelblauer Trabant.” (“A sky-blue Trabant.” The Trabant, better known as the Trabi, is a comical-looking East German automobile about the size of a VW Rabbit. It’s powered by what appears to be a lawnmower engine.)

There are posters up at the bus stop. In a couple of weeks the neighboring village of Neschwitz is hosting a Schlagerabend (“Schlager evening”), featuring artists with first names like Karlheinz, Jürgen, and Gerda.

I plan to skip town.

*I have heard other people say the same thing about ABBA, but I will refrain from doing so. The first reason for this is that I don’t have a huge problem with ABBA, actually—I even boogied to “Dancing Queen” at the Fulbright Conference’s goodbye party. The second reason is that my mentor, ID, who is much bigger than me and is a former professional athlete and could hurt me very badly if she wanted to, is a really big ABBA fan. So, let me repeat, I am making fun of Schlager, not of ABBA. There’s really no comparison. I mean, Schlager is German and ABBA is Swedish, right? Stop aiming that basketball at my head. Thank you.

Why Some People Shouldn't Breed

2005-04-25T12:17:00.000+02:00

Since I have no children now and have no real plans to have any in the future, I know I shouldn’t critique other people’s parenting. But sometimes I just can’t help myself.

This is one of those times.

One of my eighth-grade girls has a tattoo on her left shin. I noticed it the other day while I was teaching. This girl, who I’ll call “Mandy,” was sitting in the front row with her pant legs rolled up to her knees, so it was impossible to miss. This wasn’t henna and it wasn’t a temporary; it was the real deal.

Mandy’s tattoo isn’t a butterfly or a flower or any of the other cutesy, girly designs that my college roommates used to get on their ankles or lower backs. It’s a tribal design, all in black. It covers her shin from knee to ankle. It looks like the sort of thing you might expect to see on a Maori warrior. But Mandy is not a Maori warrior; she’s a 14-year-old East German girl who lives in a small village in the middle of nowhere. On her, a tattoo like that makes the statement: “I want to go to prison when I grow up.”

Let me repeat: this child is in the eighth grade. She’s 14 years old.

After class I approached Mr. A.

“Um, are kids allowed to get tattoos in Germany?”

“You have to be 18. But you can get them when you’re younger if you have your parents’ permission.”

So, let’s say you’re a parent and your 14-year-old child approaches you and asks “Mom/Dad, can I get a tattoo?” I can think of a number of responses to this question, including: “No,” “When you’re older,” “Over my dead body,” and “You’re kidding, right?” All of these responses seem ok to me. What doesn’t strike me as appropriate is Mandy’s parents’ apparent reaction:

“Fine by me. –Do I have to sign anything?”

Decent parents do not allow their adolescent children to have big honking tribal tattoos permanently stabbed into their lower legs. There is a reason for this: decent parents know that they have a responsibility to protect their kids from their stupider impulses. Adolescents, of course, are just brimming with stupid impulses: they frequently shoplift, take up smoking, punch holes into walls, and write things like “Ashley (heart)s Josh 4-Ever” on bathroom stalls.

And sometimes they want to get tattoos. This is a bad idea. Often what seems cool at 14 looks stupid by 30, or 25, or even 21.

I went to college with a girl who had four rather large tattoos on her arms. She got them done in high school. (In the US minors don’t need parental permission to get tattoos, they just need reasonably well-forged driver’s licenses declaring them 18.) Of the four tattoos she got between ages 16 and 18, she only liked one by the time she was 21. She wanted to have the other three lasered off as soon as possible.

Mandy’s parents failed to shield their daughter from her youthful bad taste. Instead of signing the forms, or accompanying her to the tattoo parlor, or whatever, they should have laughed their heads off and then said: “No way! --Go do your homework!”

Which brings me to my second point.

About half of the kids in Mandy’s class have already been left back at least once. Several are in danger of failing the eighth grade for the second or third time. A big part of the reason is that they rarely do their homework.

Mr. A assigns homework just about every night—not an excessive amount; usually just some vocabulary words to learn or a written exercise to complete. The students have to write their assignments into daily planners that their parents sign once a week, or, in extreme cases, every day. This would be a good system, except that it seems that a lot of the parents just sign the planners without checking to make sure that their offspring have actually done any work. Mr. A calls these parents to complain, but, as he puts it, “They don’t care.”

So their kids end up leaving school at 16 or 17 without even successfully passing the ninth grade Hauptschule, can’t get jobs, become alcoholics, knock someone up/get knocked up, and the cycle continues.

What the hell is wrong with these people???

(Note: Unlike most of my entries, this one has nothing to do with cultural differences. There are bad parents everywhere, from the mansions of Gross Ile, Michigan, to the mud-huts of the Ituri rain forest. It’s an unfortunately universal phenomenon.)

R-E-S-P-E-K-T

2005-04-20T10:13:00.000+02:00

Last week I got to do a lesson on African American music with my eighth-graders.* This was fun for a number of reasons.

The first is that I got to hear a chorus of German schoolchildren repeat the word “mojo” in the same apathetic monotone they use for mundane vocabulary items like “to describe” and “subway.” While mojo sounds cool or even comical to us, it’s just another English word to them! It got me thinking about all the other words and phrases I could order them to repeat after me: voodoo doll, prairie oysters, word to yo’ mother… Pity that they aren’t in the glossary.

I considered other ways to use the word “mojo” in a classroom setting. I would have liked to have posed the following discussion questions:

1. Muddy Waters is upset because, while he believes that his mojo is in good working order, it “just won’t work on you.” What could be causing Mr. Waters’ mojo to malfunction?

2. Think about a time when your own mojo failed to work properly. How did you feel? Describe.

3. Can you empathize with Mr. Waters’ frustration? Why or why not? Explain.

(Unfortunately, my eighth-graders haven’t learned the subjunctive yet and they have trouble with relative clauses, so I had to skip the discussion questions and just play the song for them. )

The second reason that this lesson was cool: I got to play Aretha Franklin! Doubly cool, since most of the kids knew nothing about her and maybe hadn’t even heard her music before. I got to be the one to introduce them to Detroit’s very own queen-sized Queen of Motown music!

Since I come from Michigan, this was a big honor. An appreciation for Motown music just goes along with growing up in the Great Lakes State, like drinking Vernor’s ginger ale to settle your stomach or habitually referring to all department and grocery stores in the possessive (Meijer’s, Kroger’s, Kohl’s, etc.). And Aretha Franklin is as good as it gets! Maybe some of us don’t own any of her CDs, but I can’t think of a single native Michigander who wouldn’t be thrilled to win tickets to an Aretha Franklin concert.

And the song on the CD? “Respect.” What else? But the textbook publishers were too cheap to buy the rights to the whole song, so we only got to hear a snippet. And it cut out just before the coolest part of the song (“R-E-S-P-E-C-T!...”), which was bitterly disappointing. To me, of course. The kids inevitably failed to appreciate the coolness of it all. There’s something wrong with today’s youth, let me tell you.

*No, my school has not softened its policy of sticking to the State-prescribed curriculum at all costs. There’s actually a reading selection on black music in the textbook!

The Hazards of Small-Town Teaching

2005-04-13T12:46:00.000+02:00

One of the main difficulties of being a teacher in a village is that you can never really get away from your job. Teachers in larger towns or metropolitan areas can leave work and be reasonably certain that they won't run into any of their students until the first period starts the following day. I'm pretty much guaranteed to see at least one of my students every time I leave my apartment. Often I see them without leaving my apartment-- my building is right next to one of the villages two bus stops, and it also adjoins a small store that sells school supplies, cigarettes, and candy (among other things). Every time I look out my windows, they're there.

This usually doesn't bother me. When we meet on the street, most of the kids are friendly and respectful. We just say hi to each other and then keep walking. I'm not 'cool,' so it's not like they want to have conversations with me. Then again, I wouldn't object if they did-- they're nice enough kids.

In general.

When I was walking to the mom-and-pop grocery store yesterday I ran into one of my eighth-grade remedial students on his bike. He was accompanied by two younger boys who I didn't know. We exchanged 'Hallos' and kept walking-- standard procedure. But then, when they were maybe 10 yards behind me, one of them shouted: 'Feine Arsch, Ms. Muncy!' Nice ass, Ms. Muncy.

I had no idea how to react to this-- after all, it isn't every day that prepubescent boys yell suggestive comments at me. If they'd been in school I would have hauled them in front of their homeroom teachers and reamed them out thoroughly, but they were on the path to the grocery store, so I just pretended I didn't hear them and kept walking.

This morning I talked to a colleague-- a grandmotherly biology teacher-- about the situation, and she told me that I should have shouted back at them: 'Yes, it's much prettier than yours!'

Perhaps I'll try this next time.

Really, although their comments were disrespectful and inappropriate, I also find the whole situation very funny. Especially since they picked my butt-- which stands out only because it's so small that I have to wear belts all the time. Otherwise my pants fall off. Jennifer Lopez I'm not.

Well, if they were trying to get a rise out of me, it didn't work. But I think that from now on I'll do my grocery shopping in less revealing clothing. Instead of jeans and a sweater, I'll put on a nice, modest Carmelite habit, or perhaps a burqa.

The Human Lagoon

2005-04-06T12:59:00.000+02:00

I had another interesting bus experience recently.

Last Monday I took the bus to Bautzen. I had just settled into my seat and placed my purse securely inside my backpack when an old lady climbed on board.

This was no ordinary Oma-type. This was a flashback to the Middle Ages.

To give you some idea what I’m talking about, I will now quote a short passage from Patrick Süsskind’s novel Das Parfum. (Translation mine.)

“At the time about which we’re speaking, a stench which is hardly imaginable for us modern people prevailed in the cities. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards stank of urine, the stairwells stank of rotten wood and of rat feces, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unventilated rooms stank of musty dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, of damp featherbeds and of the pungent sweet aroma of chamber pots… The people stank of sweat and of unwashed clothes; from their mouths they stank of rotten teeth, from their stomachs of onion juice and from their bodies, if they weren’t all that young anymore, of old cheese and of sour milk and of tumorous diseases… The farmer stank like the priest, the journeyman laborer like the master’s wife, the entire nobility stank, indeed, even the king stank; he stank like a carnivorous animal, and the queen like an old goat, in summer as well as winter.”

This woman reeked. It was obscene. I have never, ever in my entire life been in the presence of a human being who smelled that bad. This was way beyond B.O. This was what happens when you don’t bathe for weeks at a time (judging by the amount of grease build-up in her hair), don’t wash your clothes, and have never so much as looked at a stick of deodorant.

She smelled so bad that the odor wasn’t even identifiable as human. It was greasy, cloyingly sweet, sharp and metallic all at the same time. She didn’t smell like a person; she smelled like a pig farm.

When I related this story to an associate of mine, he commented, “Well, maybe she works on a pig farm.” A perfectly logical comment, but one that makes it painfully apparent that my listener failed to grasp the magnitude of the situation. The lady didn’t smell like someone who’d spent a lot of time on a pig farm, or even like someone who’d just spent the day rolling in manure—she smelled like she WAS a pig farm. Specifically, she smelled as if she were what the hog industry euphemistically refers to as a “lagoon”—a pit full of pig feces the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

She sat right behind me.

The little girls at the back of the bus pointed and giggled. I resisted the urge to hold my nose. Partly because I felt sorry for the old woman, who probably had some sort of psychological problem, and partly because I didn’t think it would do any good. Frankly, I’m not sure that a self-contained portable oxygen tank would have done any good.

She got off at the next stop. The bus driver drove with all the doors open for a quarter-mile or so. As I gasped in fresh air, I considered the fact that I will never again have to ponder what medieval peasants smelled like. I know.

(Note to readers: This is not typical. With the exception of some 14-year-old boys—a demographic group not noted for its oustanding personal hygiene—I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve run into Germans with serious odor problems. Contrary to what some Americans who’ve never been abroad think, most Europeans do bathe frequently. When planning a European vacation, there’s really no need to pack a dozen bottles of Febreeze and your own portable oxygen system. Unless, of course, you’ll be spending time on Bus 104 from Bautzen!)

Dresden

2005-04-06T12:53:00.000+02:00

Lektüre: -Siegfried Lenz, Der Verlust (German lit)
-Anne Frank, Het Achterhuis (Dutch)
-Günther Schweikle, Germanisch-deutsche Sprachgeschichte im Überblick (linguistics)

Tagesmenü: -organic whole-wheat farfalle pasta with spinach-cheese sauce
-tap water
-an apple
-dark chocolate

Nervensäge: -living in a tiny village full of senior citizens

Last week was Easter Break at my school. Naturally, I used the opportunity to escape from my village. (For a hamster-based extended metaphor, please refer to the entry “Escape! Escape!”)

I went to Dresden.

Physically, Dresden is only 45 minutes from Bautzen by train. Metaphysically it is in another world entirely—possibly even another dimension.

There is a university in Dresden, so there are young people. Really. You can actually see people between the ages of 20 and 40 just walking around on the street there, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And get this—there are plenty of non-German people in Dresden. You can overhear snippets of conversation in Turkish and Russian, for example. Sometimes you can even see black people!

The restaurants offer vegetarian options. The public transportation runs every ten minutes during the day, and, though it slows down at night, it never stops entirely. Some theaters show independent films. They have art museums.

Dresden exists in the same dimension as the rest of modern, cosmopolitan Germany, whereas Bautzen is in some weird parallel universe (possibly inside a black hole) in which the Wall never fell. Transitioning between the two is difficult. My temporal lobes went on the fritz as soon as I arrived. Overstimulation, probably.

I had a fantastic time. One of my main activities: shopping. I’m not a bigger shopper in the US, but after spending months in a town where the only things worth purchasing are mustard and Sorbian folk art (and, let’s face it, you only buy so much of that), I was ready to shell out some euros. Here’s what I picked up:

Stuff I bought in the big city:

-a cute skirt and a top

-sandalwood incense (handmade at an ashram in Pondicherry, India) and an incense burner

-a book (in German) about the differences between British and American English—informative overall, but it contains some interesting errors (Do you know anyone who refers to the seeds in fruit as “pips”? Me neither.)

-shitake mushroom spread for sandwiches (organic and vegetarian), veggie burger mix, the organic noodles I had for lunch today, and some spelt

-postcards from the art museum, with which to decorate my apartment

I also went to museums and did some sight-seeing. But the best part of the trip was hanging out with some pretty cool people. My host, a design student who grew up in my dinky village but has spent a lot of time in California and pretty much gone native, spoiled me rotten and gave great sight-seeing tips to boot. And then I spent a day hanging out with IL, a Fulbright linguist, and enjoyed the first intellectual conversations I’ve had since Berlin. (As a linguistics geek, it’s always nice to be able to toss around phrases like “voiced bilabial fricative” without having to explain yourself.)

It was really hard to go back to the dorf again. I still haven't readjusted!

Fear the Draft

2005-03-24T10:22:00.000+01:00

Lektüre: Siegfried Lenz, Der Verlust

Tagesmenü: Meijer brand macaroni and cheese (imported from home), an orange, tap water

Nervensäge: missing the last bus home from Bautzen

When my father was in high school, he was afraid of the Draft.

This was toward the end of the Vietnam War, and he knew that if his number came up, he could be shipped off to Southeast Asia, where he’d be expected to kill people. And where people would try to kill him, too. So his fear of the Draft was quite rational.

Similarly, about the time when Georgie Bush was getting ready to settle his personal grudge against Saddam Hussein (“He tried to kill my dad!”), my then-eighteen-year-old brother started to get nervous. Really he didn’t have that much to worry about, since a youth spent on skateboards and stunt bicycles left him with so many improperly-healed broken bones that the military would have no choice but to offer him a cushy desk job. But, just in case the Draft came calling, he made an agreement with his buddy Nathan. Should my brother’s number come up, Nathan’s orders were to whack him in the feet with a hammer until they broke again. (I should point out that this would not be as painful as it sounds. My brother has nerve damage in both of his feet. A truck drove over one of them recently, and he didn’t feel a thing.)

Germans fear the Draft, too. They also believe it’s a matter of life and death. But the Draft they fear has nothing to do with the armed forces. It’s the kind that results from leaving doors ajar.

As a foreigner in Germany, I was initially perplexed a phrase I heard frequently: es zieht, literally, “It’s pulling.” When I used my dictionary, I found that this is also an idiom: “There’s a draft.”

Typical scenario: It’s a hot, humid summer day. The car you’re riding in doesn’t have air conditioning, so you crack open a window. “Can’t you close that?” complains the German fellow-passenger. “Es zieht. I’ll catch a cold.”

While I was in the hospital with my broken ankle, a nurse reprimanded me for opening the window on a warm afternoon.

“What do you want to let in a draft for? You’ll catch a cold.”

“That’s a superstition. Colds are caused by germs, not cold air.”

“Any doctor would tell you that the cold air can make you sick.”

“I’m American. In the United States, doctors believe that colds are caused by viruses.”

“Well, of course viruses have something to do with it, too. But mainly it’s drafts. You’ll get sick; you’ll see.”

I realized that arguing with her would be like trying to discuss evolutionary theory with a Southern Baptist, so I shrugged and closed the window. I opened it again when she left the room.

I didn’t get sick, of course. And a few days later, the same nurse prohibited me from taking my flowers home with me. “If you take home flowers from the hospital, you’ll be back within a week. Everybody knows that.” So much for rationality.

The weird thing about this whole draft business is that while Germans are terrified of drafts, they are also big fans of “fresh air.” They sleep with their windows open in the middle of winter. If a room smells funny, they don’t whip out the Febreeze, they air the place out—regardless of the weather.

I can’t seem to tell the difference between “fresh air” and “a draft,” but then I’m just a stupid foreigner. It must be the same genetic defect that causes me to wander about my apartment in stocking feet (Germans would wear slippers) and prefer my vegetables crispy (Germans boil the hell out of just about everything).

Case in point:

I walked into a classroom last week and was struck by the powerful aroma of 11 unwashed adolescent boys. (One of my classes has a hygiene problem.) The room frankly stank, so I asked the kids to open the windows. They obliged.

Then Mr. A arrived. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, “Isn’t one open window enough? Do you think I want to sit around in a draft all day?”

The irony of the situation is that Mr. A is usually a big fan of open windows. On some days this past winter he insisted on “letting in fresh air” even though I could literally see my breath. Fresh air is good for you, you see.

A draft, on the other hand--that can be deadly.

Not Again...

2005-03-23T09:06:00.000+01:00

Lektüre: -Siegfried Lenz, Der Verlust (German Lit)
-pamphlet describing laposcopy procedure
-Anne Frank, Het Achterhuis (Dutch)

Tagesmenü: -Thai peanut noodles (from a box mix) with tofu
-low-fat yoghurt with cinnamon and sugar
-tap water

Nervensäge: -being diagnosed with yet another health problem…

It seems that I’ve come to Germany in order to explore its health care system.

Allow me to explain.

I’ve been having nasty abdominal pains for a week or so. On Saturday night they suddenly got worse. I had a fever (due to an ear infection), I was confused, I was all by myself, and I freaked out—I thought I had appendicitis or an ovarian cyst or something worse. In the US, I probably would have gone to Urgent Care. But, this is Germany, and there is no Urgent Care. If you get sick outside of the your doctor’s office hours, you can either drive to the emergency room in Bautzen or contact the Notarzt, a kind of doctor-on-call who makes house calls.

Seeing as my only means of transportation is a bicycle, and I didn’t really feel like biking all the way to Bautzen while dealing with terrible abdominal pains, I took the latter option. The Notarzt told me to go to the hospital. So I called a taxi, and away I went.

The examined me and performed some tests. They couldn’t find an immediate cause for what was wrong, so they decided to hold me. –An American hospital would have sent me home until the test results were in, but this is Germany. German hospitals hold you on any possible pretext, for as long as they can. So they didn’t let me go home until Tuesday morning.

Hospitals are wretched. You have no privacy, even in the shower. The nurses wake you at 6:15 a.m. and insist upon shooing you out of your bed so they can straighten the sheets (despite your protests that you’re just going to get right back into it anyway). People are constantly demanding tubes of your blood. The food is icky. There’s nothing to do (German hospitals lack candy-stripers who go around with magazines, and you have to pay extra if you want to watch TV). And, worst of all, you have to share your room with strangers.

One of the strangers I shared my room with was extremely irritating. An old lady, the kind who lives to discuss her health problems—in heavy Saxon dialect, no less. Direct quote (which I’ve left in German, because I think it’s funnier this way): “Heut’ hab’ ich schon Stuhlgang g’habt, und der war hart und derb.” (Translation: “I’ve already had a bowel movement today, and it was hard and coarse.”) She harped on me for not cleaning my plate at meals, despite the fact that I had abdominal pain and nausea. And she told me that since I walk around barefoot on the cold floor, it’s no wonder that I landed in the hospital. I ended up paying for TV privileges just to give myself something else to listen to.

In case you’re curious, here’s what’s wrong with me: apparently I have an endocrine disorder that makes my internal organs hurt. It was aggravated by the antibiotics I was taking for the ear infection. Hence the pains. So, I have yet another chronic condition (add this to temporal lobe epilepsy, TMJ disorder, back problems, etc.), though thankfully it isn’t anything dangerous.

A Day in the Life

2005-03-17T10:55:00.000+01:00

Lektüre: -Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Der Richter und seine Henker (German lit)
-Bastian Sick, Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod (German lite)
-Anne Frank, Het Achterhuis (Dutch)

Tagesmenü: -boiled potatoes with curds and linseed oil (the Sorbian national dish)
-a garden salad with dill dressing
-tap water

Nervensäge: hay fever

To give you a better idea of what Fulbright Teaching Assistants actually do, I’ve prepared a journal entry for you that gives you some insight into my activities on a typical day. On a typical Tuesday, to be specific—since my schedule is different each day of the week, I picked one day that I thought was fairly representative.

Here goes.

6:30 a.m.—Switch off alarm clock, remove earplugs, put on glasses, get ass out of bed. Eat breakfast (usually wholegrain rye bread with cheese or plum butter, plus a glass of juice), get dressed, make self presentable, head out the door.

7:20 a.m.—Walk to school. (This is not a lengthy undertaking, since I live about 200 yards from my workplace.) Greet various students (grades 7 through 10) who stand just outside the school gates, smoking cigarettes they’ve purchased from any one of Germany’s fine vending machines.

7:23 a.m.—Arrive at school. Greet colleagues in teacher’s lounge; hang up coat. If time, briefly access e-mail to see who’s written.

7:40-8:25 a.m.—Teach the 8a (Realschule), under the supervision of the infamous Boss. I’m not allowed to deviate from the textbook. The curriculum has to do with the US—albeit a rather stereotyped, one-sided view of the US. During a typical lesson, I introduce new vocabulary words, read texts aloud, let the students read the same texts aloud, and offer individual help during writing exercises. Here and there I try to broaden my students’ worldviews by introducing new concepts such as “not being hostile towards immigrants,” “yes, non-white people can really be Americans, too,” and “there is nothing wrong with a girl wanting to become a mechanic.” But I can’t do this too often, because it annoys the Boss.

9:15-9:35 a.m.—This is the students’ breakfast break. I usually spend it in the teachers’ computer room, checking my email.

9:35-10:20 a.m.—Teach the 10b (also Realschule), under the supervision of “Mr. A,” the school’s second English teacher. I can be a little more creative in my lessons here, but there’s still a lot of textbook work. Typical activities: debating an issue of interest to the students (cell phones in schools, etc.), reading longer texts, going over things like the use of idioms, how to use a German-English dictionary, etc.

10:25-11:10 a.m.—Teach the 8b with Mr. A. This is a Hauptschule class—remedial students. 18 kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, and/or difficult family situations. The hour generally starts with five minutes of Mr. A. haranguing selected members of the class about a.) their recent poor test results, b.) their bad attitudes, or c.) their general “laziness.” (He doesn’t seem to notice that this does not exactly motivate them.) The curriculum is the same as for the 8a, but the lessons end up being quite different because I spent most of my time making sure that everyone understands the directions, is on the right page (literally), writes in complete sentences, and actually understands at least some of what they’re writing.

11:15-11:20 a.m.—Meet with Mr. A. to discuss lesson plans for the following day. Usually he just tells me what pages to prepare. Sometimes he makes suggestions as to how I should approach an activity.

11:25-11:50 a.m.—Meet with the Boss to discuss lesson plans for the next week. Fill two and a half pages of notebook paper taking down her extremely specific directives. Worry about having forgotten something. (Note: I like Mr. A.’s approach to lesson planning better.)

11:50 a.m-12:30 p.m.—Check email again, write to family and/or friends, update blog, etc.

12:30 p.m.—Walk home, change out of work clothes, and make lunch. (Lunch is usually either leftovers or some sort of pasta dish.) Eat lunch while reading assorted books from the Bautzen Public Library.

1:30 p.m—Take a nap.

2:30 p.m—If the weather’s decent, I usually go for a walk in the woods. (My village may be boring, but it does have some nice walking trails!)

3:30 p.m—Prepare lessons for Wednesday, and, if time, for Thursday as well. Generally I type my lesson plans on my laptop first, then copy them into the notebook I use as a lesson book. Lesson planning is frequently boring and tedious, especially since it involves making my own answer keys—either German textbook publishers don’t believe in printing teachers’ editions, or my school didn't bother to provide me with one; I’m not sure which.

5:15 p.m.—Sit down with my German-English dictionary to work on Dürrenmatt, or with the Dutch-German dictionary to work on Anne Frank.

6:30 p.m.—Make dinner. (Dinner is a repeat of either lunch or breakfast—leftovers, pasta, or bread and cheese with fruit.) Eat dinner while reading library books.

7:00 p.m.—Watch the TV news while washing the dishes.

7:15 p.m.—Tune in to my favorite German TV program, Kulturzeit (“Culture Time”). Meanwhile, I either finish my lesson plans, review Sorbian vocabulary on flashcards, or do some embroidery.

8:00 p.m.—If a worthwhile program follows Kulturzeit (a nature program about moose in Sweden, for example, or a documentary about orphans in Mongolia), I might tune in. Otherwise I do some more reading.

9:00 p.m.—Shower, choose clothes for the following day, and set alarm clock.

9:30 p.m—Vent in journal. If I’ve had a particularly stressful day, I do this while drinking a glass of Beruhigungstee (sedative tea), which smells and tastes like unwashed feet, but is fairly effective.

10:00 p.m—Go to bed.

Greetings from the Fashion Capital of Europe

2005-03-14T09:28:00.000+01:00

Lektüre-
-Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Der Richter und seine Henker (German Lit)
-Bastian Sick, Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod (German lite)
-Anne Frank, Het Achterhuis (Dutch)

Tagesmenü-
-cornmeal pancakes (which don’t taste quite right, because German cornmeal is too fluffy)
-pinto beans with weird German salsa
-tap water
-an orange

Nervensäge-
-this bloody snow that won’t stop falling even though it’s already the middle of March

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, from the Fashion Capital of Europe. No, I’m not in Milan or Paris, or even Düsseldorf—it’s a little-known fact, but the Fashion Capital of Europe is actually a village 8 km north of Bautzen (population: about a thousand). For security purposes, the village will not be named, but that won’t stop your Intrepid Fashion Reporter from filling you in on the latest fashion trends in this often-overlooked region!

First, let’s take a look at the standard-bearers of the local fashion industry: 12- to 15-year-old girls.

This season calls for jeans so low-riding that you need a Brazilian bikini wax to wear them in public. Ideally, these should be coupled with brightly-colored thong underwear that sticks out a good inch over the back of your jeans. When choosing a shirt or sweater, make sure that it reveals least two inches of your stomach—more if you’re overweight or if the forecast predicts temperatures above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Your shirt or sweater should be inscribed with a borderline-meaningless English phrase: something like “Harvard Girls’ Squad ‘68” or “Kiss Me Long, Soft, and Sweet.”* (What it says doesn’t matter. Just remember: English is cool. Other than in English class, of course.) A low-cut neckline is also a plus!

Your earrings should be at least three inches long. Fluorescent-colored plastic hoops are big this season, as are dangly metallic things that appear to be made out of tinsel that didn’t sell at Christmas time.

Now for the young men:

The must-have accessory for the discerning young gentleman this season is a backpack or pencil case decorated with the English curse word “F---“: preferably in white-out, but if you don’t have any it’s ok to borrow your sister’s nail polish and write in that instead. Beyond that, be sure to pick up a pair of baggy cargo pants in olive green or camouflage print. Fill as many of the pockets as possible, and then roll your pant-legs up to mid-calf, exposing your scabby shins and leg hair. Complete the look with a T-shirt or sweatshirt with weird English writing on it.

Now let’s move on to wear this area really comes into its own: hair.

If you’re a woman or girl between 10 and 80 and your hair is its natural color, then shame on you!!! At the very least, you should have highlights. And when I say “highlights,” I don’t mean the conventional streaks meant to accentuate the natural color of your hair. Oh no. The point of highlights is to stand out, be unique (like everyone else in the village), and draw attention to yourself. Which is why they should be as far from your natural hair color as possible. If you have black hair, consider putting in platinum blond highlights, for example. (The “Cruella deVil” look.) If you’re blond, then purple is the way to go, and of course candy-apple red looks good on anyone.

Better yet, dye ALL of your hair. Again, the point is to look as unnatural as possible. The combination of fire-engine red and jet black (yes, on the same head) is quite popular with ladies in their fifties and sixties, for example. And of course, don’t forget to let those roots show!

As for hair styles, the eighties are back with a vengeance: let’s celebrate the return of the Vokuhila (vorne kurz, hinten lang) or Manta-Friseur! Mullets are everywhere in Germany, so grow out your hair! (The back part of it, at least.) Particularly trendy: a cut popularized by the newscaster on ZDF—keep most of your hair short, but grow out a few stringy strands in back and then let them curl up at the ends, flip-style. Another variation on the “Canadian waterfall” theme: sport a mullet and a Mohawk at the same time!!!

Gentlemen, there’s only one rule to keep in mind when selecting a hairstyle: wash your hair as little as possible. This cuts down on the cost of gel needed to attain the “spiky look” that’s so popular this season. But nevertheless, I would like to draw attention to a truly original style sported by one of my more troublesome eighth-grade boys. He keeps most of his hair short, but has grown out his bangs and slicks them up into a four-inch-tall conical formation using what must be an enormous amount of gel and/or hairspray. It makes him look like he should be a minor character in the “Archie Comics” series. –It’s the wave of the future, and he’s a true pioneer.

(Postscript: Yes, I realize that I’m not the world’s most stylish person myself—I own a pair of velour pants, for example, though I never wear them outside the house—but after seeing an umpteenth retiree with hair the color of a fire truck, as well as yet another sixth-grader in an obvious thong, I needed to vent somewhere! Don’t worry, this blog is not going to turn into a running fashion critique. And I’d still rather eat a live grasshopper than buy an issue of Vogue.)

* actual phrases on sweaters worn by my ninth- and tenth-grade girls

Fun Facts to Know and Tell

2005-03-10T11:00:00.000+01:00

Some interesting information about the German educational system, taken from a “Spiegel” special issue from 2002… Some information may be slightly outdated, but most things haven’t changed much.

-15-year-old U.S. students beat out their German counterparts in all three subjects tested in the PISA study! (The famous study compared 15-year-olds in 31 more-or-less industrialized, more-or-less democratic countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Subjects tested were reading, mathematics, and the natural sciences. The results of a follow-up study were published recently. Germany’s rankings didn’t improve much, and in one case they had actually slipped!)

-In reading, German students ranked 21st. The U.S. did somewhat better, coming in 15th. The five top-scoring countries were, in order: 1. Finland, 2. Canada, 3. New Zealand, 4. Australia, and 5. Ireland. The five worst were (from the bottom): 31. Brazil, 30. Mexico, 29. Luxembourg, 28. Latvia, and 27. Russia.

-In mathematics, Germany came in 20th. We barely outranked them, taking place 19. The top-scorers were: 1. Japan, 2. South Korea, 3. New Zealand, 4. Finland, and 5. Australia. The bottom of the barrel: 31. Brazil, 30. Mexico, 29. Luxembourg, 28. Greece, and 27. Portugal.

-Germany was also in 20th place in the natural sciences. The U.S. did decidedly better, coming in 14th. The top-scorers: 1. South Korea, 2. Japan, 3. Finland, 4. the U.K., and 5. Canada. The worst: 31. Brazil, 30. Luxembourg, 29. Portugal, 28. Latvia, and 27. Russia. (Side note: If Luxembourg is such a rich country, how come it has such crappy schools??? Can someone explain this to me???)

-The percentage of elementary school students in Germany who are of non-German origin: 11.8%. (This approximately represents the percentage of non-German kids in all German schools. All kids in Germany attend elementary school; after that they get tracked into various kinds of secondary schools-- supposedly based solely on their abilities, but I'm very skeptical.)

-Percentage of Hauptschule students of non-German origin: 17.3%. (“Hauptschule” is the lowest track of the secondary school system. Students take remedial-level courses and leave school after the ninth grade.)

-Percentage of pupils at schools for the handicapped who are of non-German origin: 14.9%.

-Percentage of Realschule students of non-German origin: 6.4%. (“Realschule” is the comprehensive secondary school track, where most German students end up. Realschüler leave school after grade 10.)

-Percentage of students at Gymnasien (college-preparatory schools) of non-German origin: only 3.9%!!!

-Germany and Austria are the only European countries that don’t require preschool teachers to have a college diploma.

-Average age at which German children start school: 7.

-German children attend elementary school for only four years: shorter than in any other EU country.

-According to the PISA study, almost a quarter of all German 15-year-olds have been held back in school at least once. Every year, 280,000 students must repeat a grade—more than in any other industrialized country.

-Average of textbooks used in German schools: 10 years.

-The majority of German students attend school only in the morning—in contrast to policy in almost all othe industrialized countries. Schools with instruction in the afternoon (“Ganztagschulen”) are still something of a rarity. The Federal State with the highest proportion of Ganztagschulen is Berlin (32% of all schools). The Federal State with the fewest Ganztagschulen is Saxony (where I live). As of 2002, all schools in Saxony sent their pupils home before lunch. Only 6% of all German pupils attend schools with instruction in the afternoon.

-Percentage of Germans who earn the Abitur (highest school leaving certificate, earned after 12 or 13 years of school; the prerequisite for admission to university): about 37%. (The other 63% leave school after grade 9 or 10.)

While the American school system certainly has its own problems (meaningless high school diplomas; utter neglect of foreign languages and world history; great disparities in the quality of public schools), I think that the German school system is even more screwed up. At least we provide special help to students that need it, and we don't let anyone leave school after the ninth grade! We may not be Finland or South Korea, but we're also not Germany. Or Luxembourg.

Signs You've Spent Too Much Time in Germany

2005-03-08T12:18:00.000+01:00

1. You automatically flag your 1’s and cross your 7’s.

2. You find it quite difficult to speak “pure” English (without any German words, phrases, or idioms) for more than a couple of minutes.

3. You make jokes about Angela Merkel.

4. You add canned corn to dishes in which most Americans would find its presence inappropriate or even bizarre—like salads, pasta, and pizza.

5. You wear jeans under your skirts.

6. You know your European shoe and clothing sizes, your height in centimeters, and your weight in kilograms.

7. You crave döner kebabs and rote Grütze.

8. You aren’t ashamed to wear the same outfit two days in a row.

9. You have acquired a slight German accent in your English, and you frequently use German syntax when speaking English—especially with Germans.

10. When you bump into someone, you automatically say “Entschuldigung!”, as opposed to “excuse me.” (If you stare straight ahead, pretend that nothing happened, and keep on walking, then you've spent way too much time in Germany.)

11. You hold your utensils European-style—even when no one is watching.

12. You’ve tried Blutwurst, Hackepeter, goose, and bread smeared with lard. (If you’ve eaten horse or Bregenwurst, surrender that blue passport now!)

13. You can identify the German “voices” of several American actors.

14. You’ve acquired a taste for carbonated mineral water.

15. You are tired of disclosing your political leanings to strangers, tired of explaining that there’s a lot more to American cuisine than fast food, tired of pointing out that the average American actually has more education than the average German, thank you very much! and you think that if you hear the words Ami or Ami-Land one more time, you will scream.

Footnotes (For those who need them)

As the old saying goes, “if you have to explain the joke, then it isn’t funny.” But I think I owe some explanation to those of my readers who haven’t spent much time in Germany. So, here goes:

1. A handwritten European “1” has a little flag on it, so it looks a lot like an American “7.” This is why Europeans cross their “7”s: to keep them from being mistaken for “1”s.

3. Angela Merkel is the leading politician in the Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s most socially conservative political party. She’s a lot like Margaret Thatcher, but not as warm and cuddly. Making fun of her is, after soccer, Germany’s second national pastime.

4. Germans put canned corn in everything.

5. Jeans (or any kind of pants, really) under skirts is quite popular over here. It’s cute, it keeps you warm, and it makes it easier to ride a bicycle.

6. Shoe and clothing sizes are different in Europe. Examples: in the U.S. I wear size 2 pants and a size 4 ½ shoe. In Germany, my sizes are 32 and 35, respectively.

7. The döner kebab is Germany’s national fast food. Germans think of it as “Turkish,” but actually it was invented (by Turkish immigrants) in Germany. It’s something like a gyro, only better. Rote Grütze is a jam-like dessert made of cooked red berries (raspberries and currants, mostly). It’s usually served with vanilla sauce.

8. That’s normal in most of Europe.

11. Instead of just picking up their knives when they need them, like Americans do, Europeans hold both knife and fork during the entire meal: knife in the right hand, fork in the left. It’s very easy to spot an American in a restaurant, because we’re pretty much the only country which has retained our (archaic) style of utensil usage—so when Americans overseas get sick of being stared at, they have to learn a new set of table manners.

12. Blutwurst is sausage made from blood. Hackepeter (also called “steak tartar”) is seasoned raw hamburger meat with onions, usually served on rolls. Bregenwurst is sausage made out of brains. (Thankfully, in the era of BSE, its popularity has waned.)

13. Instead of using subtitles, Germans dub foreign films into German. The German “voice” of a non-German actor is always the same, unless the guy doing the dubbing dies. So, for example, there’s some guy whose entire job consists of being the German “voice” of Robert DeNiro!

14. Next to beer, carbonated mineral water is probably the most popular beverage in Germany. Order “Wasser” in a restaurant, and this is what you’re gonna get.

15. Ami is a stupid nickname for an American—it used to refer specifically to American soldiers, but now they use it for anyone with a blue passport. Ami-Land is a stupid nickname for the United States of America—kind of like referring to Canada as “Canuckistan.”

Journey to the Planet of the Smart People

2005-03-07T09:23:00.000+01:00

Imagine 300 or so highly motivated, intellectual young Americans who work and study throughout Europe: mostly in Germany, but also in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. They are graduate students, teaching assistants, journalists, researchers, teachers, and professors. Their areas of expertise encompass everything from subatomic particles to medieval literature. These are the kids who were in the gifted classes at school, or who got beat up on the playground because the other ten-year-olds didn’t understand their interest in the lifeways of Mongolian nomads. Essentially, these are grown-up nerds.

But they’re cool nerds. Well-rounded, articulate, personable nerds. Funny and friendly nerds. Since they’ve outgrown their high-water trousers and stopped taping their glasses together, these are some pretty attractive nerds.

Now imagine gathering these nerds together. For five days, they all stay at a four-star hotel in the heart of Europe’s most dynamic, multicultural metropolis: Berlin. All of their expenses are paid. When they’re not learning about each others’ research, stuffing themselves at buffets and wine-and-cheese affairs, or attending concerts organized by musical nerds, our heroes are free to wander the city, take in museums, plays and films, or party down in Berlin’s innumerable bars and clubs.

Welcome to the annual Fulbright Berlin Conference.

This is where I spent last week. And let me tell you, it was FANTASTIC.

Aside from making new friends and hanging out in the coolest city I’ve ever been too, I learned a lot. It was incredibly intellectually stimulating! New topics to research (among others, Quakerism and Wilhelm Gleim), new films to see (“Bubbahotep”?), new places to check out—I feel the need to visit Bonn, Rheinland-Pfalz, and Dresden as soon as possible!

My plan to renew my TA-ship and spend another year in Germany (NOT in my current village; NOT at my current school; actually I want to be as far away from both as possible!) got a big boost, too. Mr. “Cleaner Drain,”* who is to the German-American Fulbright program what the Queen is to England, is impressed that I want to stay another year even though my experience this year hasn’t exactly been fantastic. So he’s going to contact the Pädagogischer Austauschdienst and have them put a note in my reapplication file. Basically, something along the lines of “Take this woman, and put her in a nice school in a university town, or else!”

I’m in! I’m in!

*This is what the man’s name means in German. It’s most unfortunate.

I Can the Englisch Languages

2005-02-24T10:36:00.000+01:00

Since this is a vocational-type secondary school and our students 'graduate' after the tenth grade and then enter the work force, there's a lot of emphasis on making sure our ninth-graders can write a CV and a letter of application-- in English as well as German. I've been grading a pile of faux CVs and application letters for the past couple of days, and I found some pretty funny examples of beginners' English.

Enjoy!

Part I: Overestimation of one's own linguistic abilities

- 'I'm speaking English and German very well.'
- 'I can the English languages.'
- 'I can German and Englisch.'
- 'I can speaking English very good.'
- 'I can good speaking English.'

Part II: Miscellaneous incomprehensibility

- 'I have the school work experience programm done in the chemistry, this, I think that's help me in my job as speech therapist.'
- 'I like it, me busy with other people and that I can help them.'
- 'Because I have loocked for a study that supports my hobbies, And I found the physicle engineer after my grammar school.'
- 'I have already two practical trainings in the direction Media.'
- 'This work experience confirmed me to apply for this job.'
- 'I have done already collect experience in a practical training and I was in a course for the language france.'
- 'But you must know: that you live in another country France or English and the time of work is not regulary, then.'

Part III: Answering the telephone (my personal favorite!)

- 'Personnel Department, Ireen Brook speaking. What's your problem?'

The Crisis

2005-02-23T08:03:00.000+01:00

Ok, probably some of you have noticed that the headline on my blog has changed, and others have received frantic phone calls from me... I'm having a mid-life crisis.

It's kind of premature, I know. Unless our calculations are based on the life expectancy of, say, Burkina Faso, I'm nowhere near mid-life. (I hope I live to be older than 47!)

But nonetheless, it seems to be the best possible label for what's going on inside my head right now.

Here's the deal: after spending my undergraduate career preparing to do linguistic fieldwork, applying exclusively to fieldwork-based grad programs in linguistics, and conducting actual fieldwork in some remote villages of Lusatia, I decided that linguistic fieldwork is not for me.

I do enjoy it on an intellectual level. It's fun, and it's very challenging. BUT in order to conduct fieldwork on a professional basis, you have to be willing to live in poor, remote regions for months at a time. And I've found that I just can't do this. Despite its lack of decent bus service and high unemployment rate (20%!), Lusatia is pretty posh by fieldwork standards. Even so, living here is doing nasty things to me. I'm depressed most of the time, I've been having a lot of seizures, and the loneliness is mind-numbing.

I still want to be a linguist. But I think I want to go into Slavic and Germanic Linguistics (yes, both) instead. This poses a problem, because the only Ph.D. program I applied to this year is very much fieldwork-driven. It no longer fits with my career goals. So, what I want to do is renew my TA-ship, spend a year in another part of Germany teaching English and learning to speak Russian (a must for Slavic Linguistics programs), and apply to a different set of graduate programs next fall.

The problem is, if my TA-ship isn't renewed, I'm kind of screwed. I won't be a student, won't be able to stay in Germany, and won't have a job. I'd have to be a rent-a-serf (i.e., 'office temp') for a year. Which wouldn't exactly look good on grad school applications.

I had a really nice plan for my life. And it's still quite workable. I just don't think it's the right plan anymore.

This is really, really disorienting.

The Great Escape, Part III: Amsterdam for the Straight-Laced Traveler

2005-02-21T11:48:00.000+01:00

You know who you are.

You’re more interested in the Anne-Frank-Huis than the Sex Museum. You’d rather take a leisurely walk along the canals of the Leidseplein than gawk at the hookers in the Red Light District. When you go to a “coffee house,” all you’re interested in is coffee.

Guess what? You can have a great time in Amsterdam without ingesting any substances that are banned in your own country, and without setting foot in the famous prostitution quarter even once. I did!

Amsterdam was quite an experience.

I experienced culture shock, but it was the pleasant sort of culture shock that comes with watching people sit confidently on bicycle racks as their friends peddle down canal-lined streets. Just about everyone in the Netherlands seems to speak both English and German. I only ran into one person who spoke neither, and then I was able to make myself understood in a kind of pidgin Dutch—it’s not a hard language to pick up if you already know its two West Germanic sister tongues. (Dutch sounds like what would happen if English and German had a baby with some kind of sinus problem.)

So what does the Straight-Laced Traveler do in Amsterdam?

-I visited the Anne-Frank-Huis and bought a copy of her diary in the original Dutch. With the help of a dictionary, I think I’ll be able to read it!

-Took in the Van Gogh Museum and learned some more about my favorite Post-Impressionist.

-Explored a very old Dutch canal house which has been furnished to look as it did in the 18th and 19th centuries.

-Walked up and down the canals at night.

-Spent an evening in a bruin café, the Amsterdam equivalent of an English pub.

-Ate a bunch of falafel from the ubiquitous “Maoz” falafel chain.

-Laughed at other tourists who were stoned and/or high on shrooms.

-Felt extremely conspicuous because anyone could tell by looking at me that I was a foreigner. It wasn’t what I was wearing; it was my lack of height. The Dutch are essentially a race of giants—literally the tallest people in the world!

The Great Escape, Part II: Restoring My Faith in Germanity

2005-02-21T11:46:00.000+01:00

No, that’s not a typo in the heading. It’s just a really bad pun!

After three nights of alcoholism in Düsseldorf I headed to Hannover to visit the nice teachers I met at the hostel in Weimar and to hang out with my buddy Jim. This trip was just what I needed.

MP, one of those super-nice teachers, put me up in her apartment. She took me to her school (a Gymnasium), where I was super-impressed by her students: her fifth-graders speak English as well as my seventh-graders do, and the 12th-graders in her German Literature class had better insights than most of my fellow students in college! (I wanted to wrap a few of them up in brightly colored paper and send them express mail to ID, as a gift.) We hung out, along with WR (the other teacher) and MP’s boyfriend, and the three of them made jokes that helped me to feel better about the rather nasty experiences I’ve had in my village in the Lausitz. They also pointed out that there might be a reason that so many of my students are named “Nancy” and “Ronny”… Funny how that had escaped my notice!

Visiting them was a cause for pleasant confusion. These people are so nice, so open and generous! They’re not prejudiced against foreigners of people of other religions! They don’t have weird ideas about Native Americans having a bridge-building gene! How on earth can they be Germans!?!

Essentially, they helped me to realize that I do like Germany, I just don’t particularly like the little corner of it that I live in. And I do like Germans, in general—I just don’t care for some of the people I’m at the mercy of in my village.

I had a good time with Jim, too. We went to a bar with three restrooms. They were labeled “Kerle,” “Women,” and “das dritte Geschlect.” (“Guys,” “women,” and “the third sex” for you monolinguals!)

Funny that when I was in Hannover I wasn’t conscious of being a foreigner at all—and I’d never even been there before! In the Bautzen area, my foreignness never leaves my thoughts. I may as well be wearing a scarlet “A” for “Auslander” here…

The Great Escape, Part I: Party in the Rheinland

2005-02-21T11:44:00.000+01:00

After making my hamsterlike escape, the first place I hit was Düsseldorf, a major city in Nordrhein-Westfalen noted for its fashion industry and the fact that my friend the Jewkrainian lives there.

After many weeks in a bleak provincial village, the bustle of the Ruhrgebiet was almost too much for me. I felt like a person who’d just been let out of prison. I annoyed my fellow Fulbrighters with comments such as, “Goodness, do those teenagers have their natural hair color?!? Wow, there are so many people here, and I’ve never seen any of them before!!! Oh my God, you can buy falafel here!!! Listen, I think that man is speaking English!!! What? The public transit here runs on weekends, too!?!”

Three other TA buddies of mine were visiting the Jewkrainian for the weekend. It wasn’t so much that she had suddenly become immensely popular, it was just that this particular weekend was Karneval, the German version of Mardi Gras, and Düsseldorf is one of the two biggest Karneval cities. The other is Köln (Cologne to you English-speakers), which is only 45 minutes away by train.

Karneval was an interesting experience, though not one I’d go out of my way to have again. Streets full of broken beer bottles get old pretty quickly, and those whistles everybody had were really annoying.

Highlights of Karneval:

-Watching a man dressed as a Bedouin woman flash his buttcheeks at the crowd from atop a pedestal.

-Being photographed with a group of very drunken men dressed in pink bunny suits.

-The train trip back from Köln to Düsseldorf on Friday night: a group of elderly people wearing turbans and/or 18th century costumes sang traditional songs in Kölsch dialect.

-The Jewkrainian’s pasta dish: a vegetarian delight.

-Visiting the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen and getting to see a painting I know very well in person: I used to look at it every day in my favorite professor’s office!

Escape!!! Escape!!!

2005-02-03T10:46:00.000+01:00

After a few weeks back in the village, I'm itching to get out again. Like a hamster in an aquarium, I've been searching my environment for weak points that might possible allow me to break out... Under cover of darkness, I fill my cheek pouches with corn kernels and sunflower seeds, shimmy up my water bottle, push up the mesh lid imprisoning me in my cage and scurry to freedom!

(All who agree that I pushed that last metaphor way too far, say 'aye.')

The weak point in my environment: two weeks of mid-winter break! So actually it is perfectly legal for me to get the hell out of the Oberlausitz for a while. I will, however, be leaving under cover of darkness anyway-- I have to take the 6:30 a.m. bus to Bautzen tomorrow in order to make my 7:45 train.

Unlike my childhood pet Sparkles, who always seemed to vacation under the refrigerator, I will be heading to western Germany: first I'll be heading to Düsseldorf to hang out with my friend Alina and experience Karneval (the German version of Mardi Gras-- less toplessness, more beer), then on to Hannover to see my friend Jim and the cool teacher I met in Weimar. After that I'm going to go to Hamburg for a few days and take a side trip to Lübeck, where I can explore Thomas Mann's childhood home.

If all goes well, I'm also going to spend a weekend in Amsterdam! That's right, I'm heading to the Netherlands.

(Note to lurkers with small vocabularies: the Netherlands is a small, low-lying country bordering Germany and Belgium, also known as Holland. It should not be confused with your nether regions, which are your reproductive organs, also known as your private parts, or with the Netherworld, which is where the ancient Greeks and Romans went when they died, and is also known as Hades.) (Please note that is a note to lurkers. Of course I would not wish to insult any of my regular readers by insinuating that they don't know the difference between Holland and Sheol.)

The escape takes place tomorrow... I've got a lot to do in the meantime. For one thing, I have to pack my cheek pouches-- I mean suitcases...

See? I told you I needed a vacation!

Keep On Rocking In the Free World

2005-02-01T13:28:00.000+01:00

I’m not going to get into the details here, since most of you have already heard them, but I’ve had some problems at work lately. Suffice it to say that someone in a position of power has been bullying me. At any rate I’ve been really, really stressed out lately and haven’t had time to blog. My prevailing mood is one of dread.

I’ve had the song “Rocking in the Free World” stuck in my head for days now. Probably because I don’t feel like I live in the Free World. The Wall fell, but 55 years of totalitarianism, Nazi and Leninist/Stalinist, left its mark on East German culture.

The best adjective I can use for rural East German is “unreconstructed.” West Germany went through a dramatic cultural overhaul in the 1960s, trying to come to terms with the Nazi past and to develop a new way of doing things. For the most part the cultural overhaul in the West was a success. Unfortunately the East never underwent anything similar. The Socialist Unity Party took the position that since Communists were brutally oppressed by the Nazi regime, East Germany was the successor state of the victims, not the perpetrators. Innocent of any wrongdoing, it was best if their new country ignored its brutal past and tried to move on. –They neglected the fact that most East German citizens were not Communists during the Nazi period, and were just as likely to have supported the Nazi dictatorship as their relatives on the other side of the Wall!

The Nazi legacy is not so deeply buried in rural East Germany. Racism and xenophobia are socially acceptable, as is the arrogance toward Slavic cultures that led Germany to invade most of Eastern Europe during WWII. Poland and the Czech Republic are viewed as suburbs of Germany, places where you can buy gasoline and cigarettes at reduced prices. Even though residents of border areas tank up in “the east” on a regular basis, few bother to learn even a smattering of Polish or Czech. They expect the “foreigners” “over there” to speak to them in German. –It seems to me that most fail to grasp that they become foreigners the moment they cross the border.

Then there’s the Communist legacy, characterized by rigid hierarchy, social conformity, and unthinking adherence to rules. I see it all the time in my school. Rote learning is emphasized at the expense of critical thinking skills. Teachers worry more about the fact that the students don’t stand up to greet them at the beginning of class than that they leave campus to smoke during the breaks. Students receive a grade for “orderliness.” There is no grade that takes problem-solving ability or creativity into account. Such skills were not valued under the Communist system, and most Communist-trained teachers don’t make a big effort to cultivate them.

These attitudes will take a long time to change.

Technically, all of my students (except a few of the older 10th-graders) were born in the Free World, and none are old enough to remember the DDR period. But in many ways they think like Ossis (East Germans), because they were brought up and educated by Ossis. This is not entirely a bad thing, of course. There are some things I prefer about East Germany—the people tend to be friendlier and more helpful toward strangers, and they have a stronger sense of community.

But then there’s that dark side. Like the Neo-Nazis sitting in Saxony’s State Parliament. They actually managed to get 8% of the popular vote during last fall’s elections!

I compare it to the American South. 140 years after the end of the Civil War, racism is still more acceptable there than in the northern states.

This still isn’t the Free World. Quite.

More Proof that Germans are Crazy

2005-01-19T10:17:00.000+01:00

I tutor the principal of a neighboring school in English for an hour and a half once a week. It´s fun, and it´s a good way to earn a little extra money.

While I was over at her house yesterday I noticed a furry seat-cover on one of the stools in her kitchen. 'What kind of animal was that?' I asked.

'House cat,' she replied.

'Did you say house cat?' I asked, not sure if I heard correctly.

She nodded. 'I had a problem with my kidneys when I was younger, so my mother bought this for me. It was supposed to help.'

She said this matter-of-factly, as if it explained everything. After all, everyone knows that the skin of a dead cat is good for kidney trouble, right?!?

The importation of cat and dog fur into the United States of America is strictly forbidden. It actually says so on the Customs forms. (Animal cruelty, you know.)

But that didn´t stop another German-speaking European I know, a certain professor who my friend Kim and I refer to as 'crazy Swiss,' from bringing a coat with a collar trimmed with-- you guessed it-- house cat. The cat belonged to her mother.

Do these people also stuff and mount their deceased relatives??? And what is the connection between cat fur and kidneys??? Can anybody explain this for me, please?!?

Operation: Escape my Dorf

2005-01-19T09:55:00.000+01:00

My village is boring. This may sound harsh, but it´s true. The population is about 1,000, and around half those people are senior citizens. There is no library, no theater, and not even a place to rent videos. No museums. No cafes. The only local clubs are the Sportverein (sports club, mainly for people who play soccer-- I don´t) and the Schiessverein (unshaven men who practice indoor target shooting while drinking German beer).

I´d only been back here for two weeks but was already getting bored. So I came up with a plan to escape. It involved a bus, a train, the city of Dresden, and my friends the Baileys, who work in western Germany. But then they noticed that their funds were getting low, so they had to back out.

Plan B. Instead of going to Dresden, I would go to Weimar-- a city in Thuringia that had earned the hearty endorsement of BC and ID, two very finicky Germanists. Goethe, the German writer roughly equivalent in stature to Shakespeare, lived there for several decades. The constitution for Germany's first brief flirt with democracy, between the two World Wars, was also drawn up in Weimar-- hence the name 'Weimar Republic.' Besides, there was a hostel there with beds for only 10€ a night.

This city clearly had a lot to offer.

Last Friday I packed my bags and took the train to Weimar. My 10€-a-night hostel was occupied by a school group from Hannover. The teachers were youngish, probably in their early thirties, and one of them was once a language assistant in England. We hung out that evening, and they offered take me along when their classes went sight-seeing the following day. (Their students were in the 12th grade, and I didn´t look older than them anyway!)

So, I got to see:
-Buchenwald concentration camp
-Goethe´s house
-the palace of Anna Amalia, a brilliant (if unattractive) 18th-century duchess with a shoe fetish rivaling Imelda Marcos'
-the Bauhaus museum

And one of the teachers insisted on paying for everything! She also invited me to visit her if I ever make it to Hannover-- I plan to take her up on the offer.

I must admit I´m jealous of their students. These were Gymnasium kids, and believe me, the difference was obvious. These were motivated, mature students with intellectual interests. My students use the weekends to get drunk and dance until dawn and can´t be bothered to come to my office hours even when they desperately need extra help in English; these kids join after-school clubs to learn Polish and Classical Greek and spend their free time taking theater workshops. I would give snippets of my liver for students like that!

Alas... But at least I had a good time hanging out with them and their teachers in beautiful Weimar, which offers everything my village doesn´t: plenty to see and do, hommus in the grocery store, and little cafes where you can eat your fill of crepes without breaking your budget.
This city definitely gets five stars.

I am Linguist, Hear me Roar

2005-01-13T10:51:00.000+01:00

As a Fulbright Teaching Assistant, my primary duty here in Germany is to help little Krauts learn English. But that´s not the real reason I´m here. The real reason I´m here is to conduct linguistic fieldwork.

Linguistic fieldwork, for those of you who aren´t 'in the know,' is when a linguist visits a community and attempts to document the way the community speaks, usually using tape-recorders. Depending on which language variety is being studied, this might entail a year spent among headhunters in highland New Guinea who practice ritual cannibalism. Or it might just mean cornering your German professor and twisting her arm until she agrees to tape record her mom and stepdad for you the next time she heads home to Idaho.

In my case, I came here to document Sorbian as it is spoken in the Catholic villages west of Bautzen. Specifically I want to scientifically analyze people´s pronunciation using computer programs-- acoustic phonetics, to use the technical term.

The broken ankle delayed my plans for several months. Until I could walk again, I was really in no position to ride buses to remote villages and coerce children and old ladies to talk into my tape recorder. But I´m better now, and I finally got started yesterday!

My first informant is a middle-aged woman who works for a Sorbian children´s magazine. She was recommended to me as an informant by her daughter, who is also a linguistics student. So, yesterday I took the bus to Bautzen and spent about an hour with Mrs. S. Her job was to translate banal German sentences into colloquial Sorbian. She found this deathly boring, of course. 'So, does everybody end up with an apple?' she asked, after forming an umpteenth sentence including the phrase ' ______ dam jabuko.´ She had to translate sentences in which she gave an apple to the old man, the old woman, her sister, her father, her brother, etc.

The boredom factor is kind of unavoidable, since linguists are advised to start out eliciting everyday vocabulary that their informants are sure to know: kinship terms, verbs like 'give,' 'eat,' and 'hit,' numbers from 1-1o, colors, etc. I suppose I could have made the exercise more interesting by asking for words like gallstone or witchdoctor, but then she might not have been able to translate them.

Doing fieldwork is exciting for me. I finally feel like a 'real linguist'. My work may not be groundbreaking, but it´s legitimate scientific research and will contribute to the documentation of colloquial Sorbian. I´m a scientist!!!

Next week I´m going to a Sorbian Mittelschule in a Catholic village to tape record three or four students, and possibly a teacher or two. The principal of the school was very eager to help me.
In return for helping out in three English lessons on Fridays (my day off), I can tape record their students. This will start next Friday (January 21st).

Wish me luck!

The Emergency Rooster

2005-01-10T13:34:00.000+01:00

I had an interesting day last Friday.

After suffering a seizure at work, I called off my planned interview with the Sorbian teacher and went home to nap until the burning sensation at the back of my head subsided.

I woke up at 12:55 pm and realized that if I did without my lunch, I just might be able to make the 1:24 bus to Bautzen. After hurriedly making myself presentable, I put on my trench coat, grabbed my new suede handbag, and scurried across the street to the bus stop. Once there, I did my best to ignore the herd of remedial pupils surrounding me, cursing, smoking, and spitting on the ground.

The kids pushed their way onto the bus ahead of me, and by the time I boarded, my usual seat was occupied by a slight ninth-grader with owlish glasses. So I sat down in the nearest available free space, directly opposite the exit door.

There was a button above the door, labeled “Nothahn.”

This made me laugh out loud.

A Hahn is a rooster. An Ausgang is an exit, and since a Notausgang is an emergency exit, then logically speaking, a Nothahn would be an emergency rooster.

“At the Upper Lusatian Regional Transit Authority, your safety is our business. That’s why each and every one of our buses is equipped with an Emergency Rooster for your protection.”

While I realized that most likely that the word Hahn simply had more than one meaning, the idea of an Emergency Rooster captured my imagination. I pictured him sitting in a little wooden box above the exit door, his crested head and feathered white breast poking out of a hole. He crowed periodically and squawked whenever the bus hit an unexpected bump.

As I pondered the Emergency Rooster, who I conceived of as being of the same breed as Foghorn Leghorn from Looney Tunes, it occurred to me that the concept had a flaw: it implied that there was already another rooster on the bus, and that the Emergency Rooster’s purpose was to serve as a back-up in case the first rooster failed.

While I have never claimed to be an expert on agriculture, I do know that you don’t really need (or want) more than one rooster. A single cockerel is sufficient to sexually assault an entire barnyard full of hens and supply your poultry operation with plenty of fuzzy, yellow chicks destined to become layers, broilers, or fryers. Besides, if you have more than one rooster, they try to kill each other. This is where “cock fighting” comes from.

To prevent the Emergency Rooster from becoming aggressive toward the Primary Rooster, who I decided would most likely be kept at the front of the bus, right next to the driver, both fowl would have to wear little blindfolds.

I was considering what function a rooster might serve on a bus—crowing to wake the driver if he fell asleep at the wheel? servicing any hens that passengers from rural villages happened to bring on board with them?—when my bus arrived at Bautzen’s central bus station. Bidding farewell to the Nothahn button, I climbed off.

The bus had just pulled away when I realized that my bag was still on the seat opposite the Emergency Rooster. And not just my bag, but also my passport, my credit cards, my house key, and the change I would need to ride back to my village or place a frantic phone call to one of my coworkers. My ankle is not yet up to chasing down a city bus, so instead I half-ran, half-limped into the ticket-selling area and explained my problem to the man at the desk. He sent me upstairs, to another man sitting at another desk, this time with a switchboard.

“I have left my purse on the bus, the one from Milkel to Bautzen. She is of leather—no, suede—and is violet in color.”
“Take a seat, ma’am,” he said (in German, of course).
The switchboard operator phoned the private company responsible for the rooster-equipped bus while I silently prayed that none of the remedial students had seen my bag on the seat and run off with it.

After several agonizing minutes, my bus pulled back into the bus station. The switchboard operator ran down to meet the driver and returned carrying a burgundy suede handbag. I was relieved—even more so after I confirmed that my passport and wallet were still there, and that no stray feathers had gotten caught in the zipper.

Blessing the switchboard operator, I left the bus station and spent what proved to be a mediocre afternoon in town. Another bus brought me back to my village early that evening. This one didn’t have a Nothahn. Oh, well. I supposed that keeping poultry on public transportation isn’t a very Teutonic idea, anyway—it sounds like something you’re more likely to run into in, say, Botswana, or maybe Albania. But I did wonder about the possibility of training chickens to alert passengers that they were about to disembark without their personal belongings…

By the way, Hahn can also mean “trigger” or “switch.” I looked it up.

Home, Home, Where I Wanted to Go

2005-01-04T11:01:00.000+01:00

After four stressful months in a dorf in East Germany, a trip home was just what I needed. The jet lag wasn’t fun, but I got to see my parents, brother, grandma, uncle, pet coyote, and two of my closest friends, which more than made up for it.

At first I couldn’t even believe that it was real. It seemed like one of the nice dreams about home that I have occasionally, and I was afraid that I’d wake up at any moment. When I saw my bedroom again for the first time, I actually cried.

What I did at home:

-I caught up on American documentary films, finally seeing “Supersize Me” and “Fahrenheit 911.” In the original English, as opposed to in (retch!) German dubbing. (I liked “Supersize Me” better.)

-Taking advantage of the U.S.A.’s much lower prices on jewelry and textile goods, I purchased a sweater, three pairs of pants, a purse, a shirt, a nice pair of earrings, a necklace, and a new trench coat. (Ok, technically my mother purchased some of those things. But I picked them out!)

-I ate American food. Turkey with mashed potatoes and stuffing. Cranberry sauce. Candied sweet potatoes. Enchiladas. A gyro. Divine!

-I pulled out the glasses-cleaner roughly every five minutes because my pet coyote insisted on “washing” my glasses for me with her tongue.

-I read books in English-- and marveled at how much quicker it is than reading in German.

-I put together the Graduate Teaching Fellowship application I need to get funding (hopefully!) in grad school next year.

Things I was happy to see:

-The aforementioned friends and family.

-My parents’ house

-My old neighborhood in Ypsi

-EMU’s campus (unfortunately the buildings were locked up for Winter Break, so I couldn’t go inside and stare at ID’s door)

-Downtown Ann Arbor

-Gigantic American grocery stores

-Midwesterners who are so polite that they apologize to you even when they haven’t done anything wrong!

-Ann Arbor yuppies (even though I actually can’t stand them)

-American television (even though I actually can’t stand that, either—with the exception of “World News with Peter Jennings,” of course)

It was definitely worth it.

40 Things I Learned During My First Four Months in Germany

2005-01-04T10:56:00.000+01:00

1. I am not cut out for small-town life. At least, not for German small-town life.

2. Walking is more difficult than it looks.

3. The American health care system is really wretched compared to Western Europe’s. Not only do tons of Americans have no health insurance at all, but the quality of care is better here!

4. Hiking is fantastic fun.

5. Bike helmets really work!

6. Living in a stranger’s house is an inherently stressful activity.

7. The Autobahn is terrifying and being in a car going that fast will make you dizzy.

8. Physical therapy works.

9. Racism and prejudice against people of other religions are still socially acceptable in rural eastern Germany.

10. Being a foreigner is also an inherently stressful activity.

11. Teaching is incredibly time-consuming. (Note: I knew this already, but now I’ve experienced it first-hand!)

12. No, it’s not true that all towns and villages in Germany have public transportation!

13. While German Gymnasien may produce better-educated citizens than American high schools, they are attended by only one third of Germany’s young people. And the other two thirds have no better than a tenth-grade education! In other words, both educational systems have their flaws.

14. Germans believe that American cuisine consists solely of fast food. They also have no concept of how big and diverse our country really is-- some of them expect Michigan to have the same climate as Florida!

15. The German conception of American Indians is, frankly, silly.

16. Being liked by your coworkers is nice, but not actually necessary.

17. Germans are a lot more judgmental about infractions in unwritten social codes than Americans are. If you sweep your walkway on Sunday or put up your Christmas tree before December 23rd, you can be sure that your neighbors will gossip about you.

18. How to deal with a your boss: smile and nod a lot, offer criticism only when absolutely necessary, tow the line, keep on your toes, and vent to friends on other continents.

19. How to deal with nasty landlords: move out.

20. Seventh-graders are much easier to deal with than tenth-graders.

21. Sparkling water is actually pretty good!

22. So are Limburger cheese and sour-milk cheese aged with mold.

23. Steak tartar (raw hamburger with chopped onion and seasonings) is not as disgusting as it sounds—but I still prefer my meat cooked.

24. German washing machines are inscrutable.

25. Learning to speak a minority language is like stepping through a secret door into a whole different country.

26. I hate being called an “Ami,” but not nearly as much as I hate hearing my country referred to as “Ami-Land”!

27. Countries work better when they are not ruled by religious fanatics. (Note: Again, I already knew this, but now I’ve seen it for myself.)

28. Intelligent television is actually possible. Over here, at least.

29. I am a typical prudish American. Which is to say, I find anatomically correct garden gnomes, advertisements featuring bare buttocks painted on the sides of buses, and clips of porn on the evening news to be vulgar and unnecessary.

30. Hospitals are boring.

31. Being an “authority figure” is kind of fun.

32. School is much more enjoyable when you have a key to the teacher’s lounge!

33. But I still don’t want to teach middle school or high school on a permanent basis.

34. A technique for shushing chatty students: Look directly at them, smile, raise an eyebrow, and say “Shhh!”

35. A technique for getting kids to stay on task when they’re doing their seat work: Warn them that you’re going to call on them. Then do so.

36. Breaking your ankle is not conducive to doing linguistic fieldwork.

37. The old, regionally distinctive Sorbian dialects have pretty much died out. Unfortunately.

38. Two advantages of living in a rural area: 1. Organic fruit right off the tree! 2. Locally-produced sheep cheese!

39. Don’t judge people until you’ve seen the way they treat you when they’re not under any professional or social obligation.

40. My correct (American) shoe size is not a woman’s 6—it’s a woman’s 4 ½!

The Germans and the Sorbs

2004-12-21T11:36:00.000+01:00

I am a teaching assistant in Germany. More specifically, I am a teaching assistant in a region of Germany that is called “Lusatia” in English. Lusatia has two other names. The German name is Lausitz—it rhymes with “How, Fritz?” And the original name is Luzica (pronounced “WOO-zhee-tsah”).

Luzica is Sorbian. Sorbian is the language of the Sorbs.

I will address a frequently-asked question right away: no, Sorbian is not a misspelling of Serbian, and the two languages have no more to do with each other than English and Icelandic. (Which is to say, they are only distantly related.)

The Sorbs are the original inhabitants of this part of Germany. They are a West Slavic people, like the Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks. This region was uninhabited when the Sorbs arrived here 1,500 years ago. It’s a swampy area, so they called it Luzica, “the swampland.” They established villages, fished, practiced subsistence agriculture, and pretty much happily went about their business, not bothering anybody, until Germanic tribes from Thuringia invaded around the year 1000.

And ever since then, the Germans have been calling the shots. The Sorbs were actually serfs until 1815(!) –the peasants tilling the flax fields were Sorbs, but the Lord of the Manor was always German. There has never been a Sorbian ruling class. The process of Germanization began back when those Thuringian tribes arrived but accelerated during the 20th century, first due to aggressive anti-Sorbian policies under the Nazis (among other things, they forbid schools and churches to use the language), then after the War when large numbers of refugees from the former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were resettled here. Virtually overnight, purely Sorbian villages became majority-German ones.

There are only about 70,000 Sorbs in Lusatia today. Fewer can actually speak the language. My village is theoretically in a bilingual area—the village has two names, and all of the street signs are in both Sorbian and German—but I’ve only actually heard Sorbian spoken in public here once: by an old couple in the grocery store. (Things are better for Sorbian in the Catholic villages west of here. There, some children still learn Sorbian as a first language and you can hear the language spoken on the street.)

Our school offers Sorbian as an elective. Of our 200 or so pupils, 2 take Sorbian lessons. That’s right: two. There are around a dozen students of Sorbian heritage, but the rest of them don’t want to stay after school to learn the language. They’d rather go home and play video games like their friends.

Despite the small number of Sorbs and the fact that their language is seriously endangered, the Germans still find the Sorbs threatening. They resent the fact that Sorbs tend to keep to themselves and don’t care for Germans (can you blame them, after what the Germans did to them for the past 1,000 years?) and that Sorbian schools are allowed to remain open with low enrollment while German schools are closed. (This is because if the Sorbian schools were closed their pupils would have to attend German schools, further imperiling the language.)

But mainly, I think that they resent the fact that the Sorbs were here first. The Germans in Lusatia consider it their homeland, and don`t like to be reminded that they aren´t actually indigenous to the area. Even if their grandparents were born in Lower Silesia.

A sample of local German attitudes toward the Sorbs:

-“They’re underhanded (hinterhältig).” This is what Germans say about people they don’t like. People from the Heath region (my area) say that the mountain-dwellers to the south are underhanded, and the mountain people swear that anyone who lives north of Bautzen is not to be trusted. Protestants will also tell you that all Catholics are underhanded (and the Catholics probably say the same thing about the Protestants, though I haven’t met enough of them to be sure--Catholics are a minority in this area.) –-I have yet to personally meet an underhanded Sorb, and though they probably exist, I doubt they’re in the majority. I have, however, gotten to know quite a few underhanded Germans! (See my previous entries for examples.)

-“They shouldn’t go around talking to their kids in Sorbian. This is a bilingual area. The children should learn German.” This comment is from my physical therapist, who was surprised to learn that one of her patients, a preschool child from a Catholic Sorbian family, speaks no German. -–He will learn German when he starts school, of course. All Sorbs learn German as a second language, and I have yet to meet an adult Sorb who was not fully competent in some variety of German. (Some older people have trouble with High German but they’re fine with the local dialect. This applies to older Germans, too.) But Germans who can speak Sorbian are rare as hen’s teeth. I have only met two, and both learned the language in order to work at bilingual schools. Funny how this “bilingual area” thing only seems to work one way…

-From a teacher at my school, who also works two days a week at the Sorbian secondary school in a nearby Catholic village: “They’re always speaking Sorbian in the teacher’s lounge, even when I’m there. I think that’s rude.” Another teacher pointed out to her, “Well, it is a Sorbian school.” (His father is a Sorb, so he has pro-Sorbian sympathies.) He then asked her why she doesn’t try to learn the language if she doesn’t like feeling excluded. She said that she can say “Good morning” and “good afternoon” and that’s enough for her!

-“It’s a dying language. Learning it is a waste of time.” From a teacher who has two Sorbian kids in her homeroom. They’re cousins, and while neither of them speaks Sorbian as a first language, they do use it with their grandparents. Both have dropped out of Sorbian lessons. Gee, I wonder why.

-And, finally, “They’re overbearing.” (Anyone who has had extensive contact with Germans will immediately see why this one is hilarious!)

The fact that I am learning Sorbian has caused some friction in our staff room. I take lessons from the Sorbian teacher twice a week during my free time. I don’t make a big production of this, although I do try to greet the Sorbian teacher with “Dobre ranje” instead of “Guten Morgen,” (both mean “good morning”) because he appreciates being addressed in his native language. But everyone knows I’m learning Sorbian, and some teachers resent it because it makes them look bad. Here I am, a foreigner who has been here for three and a half months, and I have taken the trouble to learn the minority language—-something that they, who have lived in this area for years, have never bothered to do. Essentially, my desire to learn Sorbian exposes their own laziness. And my interest in Sorbian means that in the Lusatian culture war, I have sided with the Sorbs.

Behind my back, the Germans probably say that this makes me “underhanded.”

An Update at Last

2004-12-16T13:52:00.000+01:00

Ok, I´ve been a Very Bad Blogger and haven´t updated in a very long time. Basically, things here got very stressful for a while and I had enough trouble trying to keep my head above water at school, let alone find time to write in my blog. Here´s a brief summary of what`s been going on for the past few weeks.

-Indianer-Woche went better than I thought. I was able to avoid the cheesier parts (the Mutprobe was in gym class, so I had nothing to do with it) and was able to tell some of the students a little about a real Indian (the friend mentioned in the previous entry) and use her as an example that Indians are basically normal people. I think the message sunk in, though I wasn´t able to single-handedly undo all the stupid stereotypes that they heard from their other teachers.

-I had a Thanksgiving Dinner after school with some of my 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. About 20 kids showed up and had a good time cooking and trying the food. The cornbread especially was a big hit, and one of the boys asked for my turkey-breast recipe. They enjoyed themselves and learned something, too, and this earned me brownie points with the Boss.

-The Boss still doesn`t like me and does petty little things like un-inviting me from the school trip to the Dresden Christmas Market (supposedly because of my leg, though it´s actually much better now). But I think she grudgingly accepts that the students benefit from my being here. I do my best to stay out of her way and not let her get to me.

-I can walk without my crutches now, though I still use them occasionally when I´m tired or I have to walk a long way. After two ambulatory surgeries, my ankle is much better, but it still swells up to twice its normal size in the evening. The muscles in my left calf have practically disappeared. My legs look like they belong to two different people.

-I´m going home for the holidays!!!! Depressed by the thought of spending Christmas Eve alone in a bar in Hamburg (I was going to go there to escape my dorf), I agreed to let my parents fly me home for a week. The jet lag will be a bitch, but at least I´ll get to see my family and friends.

I´ll try to update again soon.

Indianer-Woche

2004-11-26T11:50:00.000+01:00

Next week is Indian Week at my school. The eighth-graders will be learning about American Indians in just about every subject: locating reservations on a map in Geography, reading texts about Indians in German and English, painting “chiefs” (complete with feathers and war paint) in Art, and so forth. Some of the stuff they’ll be doing is actually kind of cool-—I believe they’re building miniature wigwams, for example—-but a lot of it is hokey at best, or even disrespectful.

There will be a Mutprobe. (“Test of courage.”) This bothers me, and not only because it’s cheesy. The “tests of courage” and “vision quests” that some Indian youths underwent (and undergo) are religious rituals. Since when is it ok to half-assedly imitate other people’s religious rituals? Should we also hand out Ritz crackers and Dixie cups of grape juice so they can see what it’s like to be Catholic and take Communion?

Unfortunately, when it comes to this project I do not have high expectations of respectfulness or even accuracy. -–My boss honestly thought that the reason Iroquois Indians did so much of the construction work on the Brooklyn Bridge is that Indians have some sort of genetic mutation rendering them indifferent to heights! (This is b.s., of course. Indians do have a genetic predisposition to diabetes—and white people have a predisposition to near-sightedness—but there’s no such thing as a no-fear-of-heights gene.)

As calmly as possible (though actually I was horrified—what’s next, a Jewish money-lending gene?), I informed her that this is not actually the case. Finally she said, “Oh, maybe it’s just certain tribes.”

!!!!????

She also wanted me to tell the kids the old myth about how the nice white settlers invented Thanksgiving to thank their Indian brethren. So I told her the real Thanksgiving story: namely, that the Indians weren’t actually invited to the feast, but showed up when they heard gunfire. Relieved that the hairy, unwashed foreigners were preparing for a party and not a battle, they agreed to stay for the meal in order to mitigate free-floating hostilities.

The Boss didn’t believe me.

I skirted the issue by preparing an activity explaining the lifestyle of the Puritan settlers. No direct mention of the First Thanksgiving at all!

Frustrated and frankly freaked-out by the great font of ignorance that I work for, I sent an e-mail to a friend of mine who was a TA in Germany once, asking for advice. My friend, who happens to be a member of a federally recognized Indian Nation, told me that it sounds like my boss got her ideas about Indians from the novels of Karl May. Karl May is, as my friend put it, “the German Louis L’Amour.” He wrote immensely popular novels about an imaginary Indian named Winnitou, though in fact May had never met an Indian in his life. The one time he visited the States he didn’t make it west of Pittsburgh.

My friend was amused to learn that she is genetically incapable of being afraid of heights.

In the 8b, taught by the other English teacher, I will be presenting an activity called “Meet a Real Indian from Today” in which my students can look at a picture of my friend, who has short hair (no braids!) and does not go in for war paint, unless maybe you count eye-liner. They will learn that she is proud of her heritage, but has a regular job and a normal apartment and watches TV like everyone else. Essentially, I hope to show them that Indians today live in the modern world and are normal people, not all that different from them.

I offered to present this information in the 8a, too, but the Boss was not receptive.

I find it extremely ironic that we’re spending a whole week on Indians when they have their own oppressed indigenous minority group right here: namely, the Sorbs. (Who don’t get much coverage in school at all, as far as I can tell.) So my eighth-graders, including two Sorbian eighth-graders, will be learning about how we American white folks mistreated the Indians for four hundred years. I am tempted to mention that what white Americans did to the American Indians isn’t much different from what the Germans did to the Sorbs—namely, invade their country; steal their land; enslave them; and attempt to destroy their culture—but I doubt that this would go over well.

What would be comparable:

A middle school in small-town America, located 20 miles from an Indian Reservation, with two Indian kids in the class, spends a week learning all about Sorbs. Painting colorful Easter eggs, finding the towns of Chroscicy (aka Chrostwitz) and Pancicy-Kukow (aka Panschwitz-Kuckau)on a map, and even organizing their very own Corpus Christi procession, complete with a paper-mache Mary statue and Druzka (Honor Maiden) costumes made out of old newspapers…

Ridiculous, at best.

The German School System, Part II

2004-11-19T13:18:00.000+01:00

In the last post I discussed the school system in general. In this one, I`ll focus more on day-to-day life in German schools.

One difference that I brought up in the last entry is that homerooms always stay together. In Saxony, children are assigned to a homeroom in seventh grade at a Mittelschule (after they`ve been devided into Hauptschüler and Realschüler) and in fifth grade at a Gymnasium. They are also assigned a homeroom teacher. The classes have all of their lessons together, and they stay together until they leave school-- homerooms don`t change from year to year, and neither do homeroom teachers. This system has its good points-- German students have a kind of comeraderie that American students usually don`t get to experience.

Another difference is that while American middle school and high school students have the same schedule each day of the week, German students (and therefore also German teachers) have a different schedule each day. So they might have Music lessons only on Wednesdays, for example. The lenghth of the school day also varies from day to day-- on Mondays everyone stays at my school until 3pm, but on Fridays most people go home after noon.

German schools have no substitute teachers. This means that when a teacher is sick, her colleagues have to cover her classes. However, they teach their own subject of specialization. For example, when my boss got sick this week the kids had an extra Biology class instead of English. --If no one is available to cover the class, then the kids are simply sent home early.

By American standards, German classrooms are very formal. Seating students around tables never caught on here-- they all sit in rows, facing front, two to a desk. When a teacher enters the room they have to stand and say 'Good afternoon' (or 'Good morning') and they may only sit down when the teacher gives them permission. There is comparatively little misbehavior-- but also not nearly as much creative thinking. I find that my students are quite passive and have trouble with tasks that require critical thinking skills. They tend to accept whatever the textbook or the teacher says (or at least pretend to accept it), and have difficulty with assignments involving things like evaluating newspaper articles for bias.

Grades in Germany are on a scale of 1 to 6. 1s are only awarded for really exemplary work-- most papers that would have gotten As in the US are given 2s here. (No grade inflation!) A 6 is failing. Teacher announce students' grades in front of the entire class, as well as specific criticisms like 'your pronunciation was terrible' or 'you didn't make eye contact with the audience.' Praise, on the other hand, is doled out sparingly, as if it were a rationed commodity. (I try to be the exception in this regard!) Students are also invited to critique each others' work in the upper grades. The result is that German students (and German adults) are used to public criticism and are therefore more self-assured than most Americans. But they also tend to be on the defensive side.

Corporal punishment is not allowed, but comments like 'If you do that again you'll get a black eye' are standard. This is mostly in jest, though. (It's still interesting when you think about the fact that even joking about that would get you fired from an American school!)

Younger German kids (grades 5-8, or so) seem more innocent than their American counterparts, and also more responsible-- they`re used to riding public transportation and running errands by themselves. Older kids (grades 9 and up) are more worldly and more jaded. At 16 they can drink legally, and it`s common practice for teenage kids to have their boyfriends or girlfriends spend the night! (I find this kind of disturbing.)

Other random differences:
-German students are required to take either Religion class or Ethics class. My school offers Catholic and Protestant religion classes. Some schools in areas with large immigrant populations also offer Muslim religious ed.
-German kids snap their fingers when they want to answer a question!
-There are two long breaks: one for breakfast at around 9 am and one for lunch at noon. On Tuesdays a bakery truck comes to the school during the morning break and sells fresh bread, rolls, pastries and sandwiches!
-Instead of one long summer vacation, German school breaks are spread throughout the year.
-Extensive class trips are very common. This May I`ll be going to England with my ninth-graders!
-There are no water fountains in the school (bad!) but also no vending machines (good!). The school does sell a hot lunch, and students can buy milk or juice during the morning break.
-German students are in better physical shape than their American counterparts.
-EVERYONE, regardless of their type of school or educational track, learns at least one foreign language: English. Students in Gymnasien also learn a second foreign language: usually Latin or French, but sometimes Russian, Polish, Czech, Spanish, or Italian. Since I`m in a theoretically bilingual area (actually only the Sorbian minority is bilingual, but that`s a topic for another post...) my school also offers optional Sorbian lessons. But we have only two students who participate, although there are a lot more who come from Sorbian families!

Well, I hope that was enlightening for you, and maybe also entertaining, or at least not deadly dull. I know that some of my readers work (or have worked) in schools-- as for the rest of you, I`ll try to come up with something really sarcastic for the next entry!

The German School System, Part I

2004-11-15T14:25:00.000+01:00

People back home ask me home German schools differ from schools in the U.S. In the following couple of posts, I will attempt to answer this question. Hopefully my explanation will be of some interest to at least some of you. But if I bore you to tears, then I apologize, and I promise to return to sarcastic commentary and caustic witicisms soon.

(Be advised that, as in the U.S., the German educational system does differ somewhat from state to state. I´m in Saxony. Some things I mention may be true for Saxony but differ slightly in other parts of the country.)

The first difference that Americans notice, and probably also the biggest difference between the American educational system and the German one, is that there are two completely separate kinds of secondary school. The first kind is called a Gymnasium, and that has nothing to do with physical education. A Gymnasium is basically a college prepatory high school, attended by students in grades 5-13. About one-third of German students are tracked into Gymnasien. (No, that`s not a typo. There really is a thirteenth grade in Germany.) Before leaving school, Gymnasiasten have to take a very challenging exam called the Abitur in order to get their diplomas.

The other kind of high school is called a Mittelschule (in Saxony, anyway). Mittelschule ends after grade 10. Pupils who attend Mittelschulen are divided into two streams after the sixth grade: Hauptschule, which is basically remedial education, and Realschule, which is where more average students end up. Hauptschüler leave school after the ninth grade, usually without any kind of diploma, and then take menial jobs. Realschüler have to take an exam before they leave school after grade 10. Then they begin apprenticeships in any of a number of fields (among other things, nurses and travel agents don`t need an Abitur). Some also transfer to a Gymnasium to finish their studies.

In order to eventually get a university diploma, you first need an Abitur, which you can only get if you attend a Gymnasium. The German educational system is widely criticized because it starts streaming pupils at a very young age. --When do they decide whether your little darling is Gymnasium (and hence, college-preparatory) material? In the fourth grade. Supposedly this is done by looking at grades, evaluating the student`s ability to work independently, etc. But in practice it also has something to do with the parents' occupations. If little Florian is a bit of a dim bulb but his parents are a lawyer and an architect, you can bet that he`ll nevertheless start fifth grade in a Gymnasium. And, on the other hand, if little Ilkai does well in elementary school but her parents are a janitor and a housewife, and moreover, she's Turkish, then she'll probably be shunted into a Mittelschule.

You may have picked up on the fact that I have a problem with this system.

But there`s also something else that I have even more of a problem with-- namely, German schools offer absolutely no support for students with learning disabilities. Children with actual mental retardation (as well as severe physical disabilities) are sent away to special residential schools. But there`s no help at all for learning disabled kids. They usually just get sentenced to Hauptschule, and, therefore, to a life of menial labor. The situation is made worse by the fact that German children are held back if they fail a single subject in school, and by the fact that homeroom classes stay together in all subjects. So, a learning disabled student who has a lot of trouble reading but is, say, of average or even superior intelligence in math, still has to take remedial math, because he`s in a remedial homeroom. And if he fails English (even though he got a B in math), then he has to repeat the whole year. --Repeating a year is very common for Hauptschüler.

Needless to say, Hauptschüler are usually pretty embittered by the time they reach ninth grade. In my estimation, 75% of them have undiagnosed learning disabilities.

This situation makes me angry, because a lot of these kids could succeed if they got proper support. Take one of my favories-- a seventh-grade girl who I`ll call Erika. Erika has a lot of trouble reading. When reading aloud, she mixes up letters and has a tendency to just look at the first letter of a word and then guess what it should be. I strongly suspect that she's dyslexic. But, the kid is not stupid!!! As long as a task doesn't require her to read, she does just as well as any of the other students. In addition, she's quite motivated-- she's taking an extra English class as an elective, even though she could take a health class (which would probably be a lot easier for her). And she always volunteers to answer questions.

But, Erika is of course a Hauptschüler. This means that she's already been condemned to life as a cleaning lady or a cashier, even though she's only 13. In the U.S. she`d go to the resource room a few times a week for extra help with her reading, and she'd learn strategies to get around her reading handicap. Nothing like that exists here-- I've asked. In the U.S., she might still be in a remedial English class, but she could take classes like math or geography at a higher level. She'd have the opportunity to finish high school and probably attend at least a community college, and she wouldn't be doomed to a dead-end job. In short, Erika would be able to achieve the same things as the Realschüler, although she would have to work harder to get there.

But this is Germany. And the school authorities decided that Erika was an Epsilon.

Horse Bone Marrow, and other Bizarre Acts of Hospitality

2004-11-11T13:23:00.000+01:00

My leg is healing nicely. It doesn´t hurt anymore, the scar is fading, and when I accidentally put weight on it for a few seconds last weekend, my ankle didn´t give out.

My recovery isn´t surprising, since I´ve been following the recommendations of various health professionals: eating plenty of calcium and protein; getting enough rest; physical therapy twice a week; smearing my leg daily with a salve of horse bone marrow.

Yes, horse bone marrow. Really. It was a present from my friend PT´s mom. Apparently it´s traditionally used to treat broken bones in the Oberlausitzer Bergland. The belief is that the horse marrow cells will strenghten your own bones. --My physical therapist assures me that this is utter nonsense, since skin isn´t permeable from the outside. But I figure that it can´t hurt, either, and the grease might give the skin on my ankle a supple, youthful look. Besides, I´m here to experience another culture, aren´t I? Is there a better way than by smearing myself with the last mortal remains of Black Beauty?

The horse bone marrow is yellow and fatty. I keep it in an old vitamin container in my refrigerator. It has a strong smell. Not good, but not terrible either-- just strong. I sleep in old socks so the stuff won´t get all over my sheets.

I didn´t ask where Mrs. PT obtained the horse bone marrow. Maybe somebody´s old nag died. Or maybe she got it at the butcher shop.

You can find horse meat at some butcher shops in Germany. Over here, horse is not just for Fido anymore. German people eat horse meat, too.

My former German professor, ID, was once forced to eat horse meat in order to avoid offending her German hosts. She was living with a family in the Rheinland at the time. They found out that she´d never experienced the great delicacy that is horse flesh, so they insisted on preparing it for her as a special treat.

'No, really,' I picture her saying. 'You don´t have to go through all that trouble just for me.`

When ID tells the story, she says, `The whole time I was eating it, I kept picturing a big, round horse butt.` As she says this, she habitually traces the outline of a horse´s rump in the air.

`What did it taste like?` we ask her.
'It reminded me of bear meat, actually.' --ID grew up in the wilds of north Idaho, where people eat things like bear and moose and cow brains and pig testicles. But not horse. Horses aren´t for eating, in Idaho. They´re kept as ´companion animals.` Children in Idaho (ID, for example) have ponies as pets and take them to 4-H shows.

And this, from my cultural biased North American perspective, is how it should be. I would never eat a horse. Or a dog, either.

But really, which is weirder, eating horse meat or rubbing horse bone marrow into your broken ankle?

Profiles in Moral Cowardice

2004-11-04T11:02:00.000+01:00

As most of you know, I´ve lived for the past month and a half (minus the hospital stay, of course) with a `host family` in a small, isolated village near the larger village that I teach in. This has come to an end. I´ll explain the reasons below.

This family--I´ll call them the Goebbels (not their real name)-- offered me a room in the basement in return for €220 per month. When I moved in, they showed me my bathroom and my toilet, and said that I could also use the living room and the kitchen. They offered to take me with them when they went grocery shopping in town. They even threw in a hot lunch every Sunday.

Soon after I moved in, I realized that my kitchen and bath weren´t private at all. Instead, I had to share them with the Goebbels´spoiled teenage daughter, Helga. (Not her real name.) But, the rent was cheap by American standards and all utilities were included, including satellite TV, so I let this slide.

A couple days later I noticed that my TV didn´t work. Then, Magda Goebbels expelled me from the living room. Things improved a little while I was in the hospital and for a short while afterwards, but about a week ago the situation began to deteriorate rapidly. Magda consistently `forgot` to ask me if I´d like a ride when she went grocery shopping, and a couple of times I ran out of food.

It was 4 p.m. last Sunday and nobody had knocked on my door to tell me that lunch was ready. I thought this was a little weird, so I asked Josef Goebbels what was up with the situation. He became very angry and hissed at me that while they invite me to lunch sometimes, it wasn´t a standing invitation. --I had the impression that the cost of lunch came out of my rent! I silently cursed the Goebbels family as I reheated yet another TV dinner.

Since I can’t carry anything that I can’t put in a bag, I can´t actually cook—I’m stuck nuking things for the time being. The Goebbels’ kitchen is set up in such a way that I couldn´t get my TV dinners from the microwave of the table, so I had to eat them at the counter. This worked for a while because they let me push chairs from the table to the counter and then back again. –Actually leaving a chair at the counter was, of course, strictly forbidden. It might get in some able-bodied person’s way.

Wait. It gets worse.

Just as I was about to pop my Monday lunch into the microwave, Helga informed me that I was no longer allowed to push the chairs around the kitchen. Theoretically it could damage the wooden floor. –Of course, I’d been doing this for two weeks and the floor was perfectly fine, but whatever…

So, from now on I’d have to eat my hot meals standing. On one leg.

That was the last straw. Out of desperation I told the music teacher about my situation on Tuesday morning. “I feel so, so sorry for you,” she said. Then she left.

She returned about a half hour later. It turns out that she lives within 200 meters of the school and is on good terms with some neighbors who operate a small bed-and-breakfast. She asked them whether they’d be able to put me up for 220 Euro a month. They said yes. So I went over to look at the room.

It wasn’t a room. It was an efficiency apartment, fully furnished. Private bath and shower. My own kitchenette. Twin beds. Fully functional television and radio. No stairs to climb. Access to a washer and dryer. All utilities included.

!!!!!

Magda walked into the kitchen on Tuesday evening as I was eating my dinner. I probably looked pretty pathetic, balancing on one leg, half-leaning over the counter, shoveling food into my mouth. Most people would have offered to bring me a chair. Magda didn’t say one word to me.

First thing Wednesday morning I informed the bed-and-breakfast people that I would take the room, and that I’d be moving in as soon as possible.

But there was still one problem. I was terrified of the Goebbels'.

This was not unwarranted. Mr. (Josef) Goebbels had yelled at me on a few occasions and sneered at me on several others. And as for Magda… Well, a lot of the teachers at the school are afraid of her, too. She has a reputation for getting extremely nasty when, for example, teachers confront her about Helga’s little habit of cheating on tests. The principal describes Magda as a “miserable beast.”

I was prepared for shouting. I was prepared for them to demand that I pay for the entire month of November—despite the fact that, without a rental contract, they couldn’t force me to do so. I was prepared for the possibility that they would throw me out on the street immediately—I even smuggled my valuables to school Wednesday morning just in case!

When Magda brought me my mail Wednesday evening, I forced myself to tell her.

“Good,” she said, without a trace of emotion. “We wanted to change that anyway. It was too awkward. Our other tenants were much more self-reliant.” She uttered this last sentence as if I had a weak character as opposed to a broken leg.

To preempt any attempts to extort a full month’s rent from me, I offered up front to pay for the first week of November, despite the fact that I would only be present for four days. I asked her to bring the vacuum cleaner downstairs so that I could clean my room before I left. “There’d better not be any spots on the carpeting,” said Magda. “We just installed it.” I assured her that this would not be a problem. Then I packed my bags.

When Magda came for the bill, she wanted it exact to the penny—it came to something like 52 Euro and 67 cents. (I found this odd, since I volunteered to pay for three extra days!) Then she said, “Bye-bye! We won’t see each other anymore.”

As if I’d seek out further contact with her and her miserable family.

When I hobbled upstairs later that evening to take a phone call from a German friend, Josef gave me a look that I generally reserve for unexpected piles of dog filth. I greeted him with a cheerful “Good evening!”

Fear quickly turned to loathing. These people wanted to me to leave, but instead of calmly explaining the situation like rational adults, they strived to make my life as difficult as humanly possible so that I’d be forced to flee! Profiles in moral cowardice, indeed.

The thing is, if Josef or Magda had approached me politely and asked me to seek out a new place to live, I would have understood. Helga was born with a chronic illness which no doubt is very stressful for her parents. Having a tenant with a broken leg was too much for them. Unfortunately, the Goebbels aren’t much for showing consideration or even courtesy to anyone beyond their small circle of relatives and close friends. True, they visited me at the hospital. But my boss was keeping tabs on this, and it may have been just to keep up appearances. Josef and Magda aren’t popular at the school, and I get the impression that they’re not exactly pillars of the village, either.

After the latest debacle, all the teachers at school are completely disgusted with them. At least half a dozen offered to help me move. (The move took place on Thursday afternoon. The English teacher and the music teacher hauled my bags in their cars while the school secretary actually rode my bicycle from one village to the other! The geography teacher lent me her suitcase to make everything easier. Afterward, the music teacher bought me dinner.)

And it’s a good thing for the Goebbels family that my parents are on another continent, because I think my mom was about ready to rip them a new orifice.

I’d call them swine, but pigs are actually intelligent animals and can be as friendly and personable as dogs if properly trained. I’d call them vipers, but snakes are just following their instincts—they don’t have malicious intentions.

So instead I’ll call them what they are. Unfortunately, what they are is not printable in a family-friendly blog.

Well, I suppose you can’t expect much from people who take their decore tips from Martha Stewart’s latest book, Decorating with Dead Things. (Morticia Addams keeps a copy on her coffee table.)

Seriously. I’m not talking about a trophy or two here, folks. There are at least twenty skulls and pairs of antlers in the house—and those are just the ones in the parts that I had access to. Pelts all over the walls, too. Including one that bears a very disturbing resemblance to my little dog, Layla…

I have nothing against hunting, but plastering the walls of your house with body parts strikes me as morbid. (Jeffrey Dahmer stuffed and mounted things too, folks!) I suppose that excessive trophy-collecting corresponds to a certain mentality. One in which it is far too easy to treat other living things like pieces of furniture.

Radio Free Deutschland

2004-11-02T10:34:00.000+01:00

Sorry again for not posting in a while. I actually tried to last Thursday, but the computer froze up on me...

Four weeks after my accident, I´m getting around on crutches quite well. The main problem is carrying things. If I can safely put it in my backpack, I have no problem at all. But try putting a pot of boiling water or a pan of hot grease into a backpack. (Better yet, don´t. Suggestions in this blog are not to be taken literally, and if you´re stupid enough to do so, I am not legally responsible for the consequences!) So cooking´s pretty much out. I can use the microwave because all I have to do is take out my food and set it on the same counter that the microwave sits on. I´ve been eating a lot of TV dinners. I love to cook, and I´m not much for processed food, so this development doesn´t thrill me.

But enough about my life as a gimp. On to the actual topic of this blog: German radio stations.

To be blunt (or culturally biased, depending on how you choose to look at the situation), German radio is bizarre.

In the United States and Canada, it is customary for radio stations to play one particular type of music: classic rock, or country, or contemporary rock, or gospel, for example. This is called a ´format.´ Radio stations pick formats because they want to appeal to a particular audience: aging baby-boomers, farmers, sullen teenagers, or Bible-thumpers. They don´t try to appeal to, say, brooding teens with multiple piercings and 65-year-old Mormon housewives at the same time, because it´s not possible. (Note: Trust me; I know how radio stations work--I was a DJ for four years!)

German radio stations, as far as I can tell, have no format at all. I have to listen to German radio several times a day whether I want to or not, because a radio switches on automatically when you turn on the light in my bathroom. While I can´t change the station, I have had the opportunity to listen to other stations in the car. None of them have formats.

The result is that you´ll be driving along, listening to what seems to be an ok station-- playing a song like `Dust in the Wind` by Kansas, for example. And just when you´ve relaxed and are are enjoying yourself, `Dust in the Wind` ends and a new song comes on. And it´s `Who Let the Dogs Out?` !!! --I am not making this example up. This actually happened.

Or take the station in my toilet. It plays mainly dance music and pop. There´s a lot of Britney Spears and so forth (insert wretching sound here). But, do you know what the one song is that they play more than anything else? The song that I hear at least once a day, and which I will associate with bowel movements for the rest of my life? --`Take Good Care of my Baby.`

No, not a remake. The original. From the Fifties.

There are aspects of German culture that are pleasantly different from the United States: the bread is excellent, for example, and there´s virtually no sprawl. And then there are unpleasant differences, like compulsive orderliness and German radio.

Addendum: While German music radio has very little in common with the North American equivalent, the morning shows are virtually the same. They even have a ´Battle of the Sexes` and a ´Sexiest Saxon` contest. The announcer is named ´Miss Peggy.` I am uncertain whether the station managers realize that American listeners associate the name with a pig in a blond wig.

Krankenhaus

2004-10-25T08:22:00.000+02:00

(Note: I haven´t posted for a while because I´ve been indisposed-- I broke my ankle. To read about my accident, scroll down to Hals- und Beinbruch !)

Wessi (West German) and American prejudices to the contrary, hospitals in Saxony are very good. Nationally, they rank just behind Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in quality of care: pretty impressive, considering that those are the two richest Bundesländer (federal states)!

While American hospitals release people far sooner than they should (so that insurance companies can save money), German hospitals keep patients around much longer than necessary (in order to make money off the insurance companies). (I think that German hospitals are smarter.) After my bike accident I was in the hospital for 11 days. Originally the doctors had planned to hold me a full two weeks, but then somebody decided it would be best to free up my bed for incoming accident victims.

I had never been in a hospital overnight before. I had never had surgery before, discounting the removal of my wisdom teeth, which was an ambulatory procedure performed in a small clinic.

I had no idea what to expect.

The first surprise was that Germans no longer believe in putting casts on broken bones. Despite both of my fractured ankle-bones, I remained cast-free. Instead, they always kept my leg in some kind of dressing and ordered me not to put any weight on it, but to move it as much as possible. Every day a physical therapist came and did some leg- and ankle-strengthening exercises with me (to prevent thrombosis and muscular atrophy), massaged my leg (using a special technique developed to prevent swelling), and taught me practical skills like how to climb stairs on crutches (very carefully).

Surprise number two was that the food at this particular hospital wasn’t bad. The breakfast and dinner menu wasn’t fixed: you could order whatever you wanted from a long list of possibilities. At lunch there were always three entrees to choose from, including a vegetarian option that was generally the safest bet.

One thing that came as no surprise is that hospitals are boring. Especially when you’re not allowed out of bed except for physical therapy or to use the bathroom. I read. I slept a lot. (Heavy painkillers will do that to you.) I assembled paper folk-costume dolls that the Sorbian teacher brought me. I talked to my roommate. I received visitors. Thanks to you great people back in the States, I also received phone calls.

And that was about it.

My hospital stay wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience, but it wasn’t horrible. My only real complaint is with a certain night-nurse with the face of a boxer who’d lost too many fights and the disposition of Nurse Ratchett from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. (My father informs me that every hospital has at least one nurse like this.) When the pain kept me awake one night, said nurse yelled at me for not being asleep, and then for asking for something to deaden the pain, when everyone knows that such medications gnaw at the lining of one’s stomach.

Whatever. I never developed any ulcers.

Hals- und Beinbruch

2004-10-25T08:20:00.000+02:00

Apologies for the long time lapse between posts. I have an excellent excuse.

On Tuesday, October 5th, at about 4:30 pm, I had a bad bicycle accident. I haven’t posted since because I was in the hospital for 11 days and after my release I had no way of getting to the school to use the internet. (The past two weeks were our fall vacation.)

It was my habit to going hiking or bike-riding just about every afternoon. October 5th was beautiful—fairly warm with a cloudless blue sky. I ate lunch (spaghetti with tomato sauce) and then decided to go for a long bike ride. I wanted to check out the villages west of my own. So I rode to Crosta, to Lomske, to Luppa, to Luppedubrau, then back to Lomske.

This is where things got interesting.

I didn’t want to take the same route home, so I turned north onto a rural highway, heading toward a village called Milkel. German rural highways aren’t the Autobahn—there is a speed limit—but Germans drive faster and more aggressively than most Americans. Country roads over here are basically one-lane affairs. If somebody comes from the other direction, you pull off to the side and slow down so they can pass. If somebody wants to pass you from behind, you do the same thing.

The road between Lomske and Milkel is notorious for speeding. Unfortunately I didn’t know this at the time.

I was only a couple hundred meters out of Lomske when I decided to pull closer to the shoulder to make room for cars. I no longer remember whether there was an immediate need or if it was just a preventative measure. I do know that I veered too far to the right and ended up on gravel. I lost control of my bike and went flying.

(Note: Everyone asks me whether I was struck by a car. The most honest answer I can give you is I don’t know. I have no memory of a car, but the doctors say that my injury looks much more like something that would result from a collision than from a simple bike accident.)

I did a somersault in the air. My head hit the ground first. Thanks to my helmet, I hardly felt a thing—it was like landing on a pile of mattresses. Then I bounced, rolled, and came down hard on my left leg.

For a few seconds I thought I’d just get up, get back on the bike, and keep riding. After all, I’d taken spills from my bike before.

Then I realized that I felt very weak and rather queasy. My leg hurt like hell. I decided to wait for help. I lay there on the shoulder of the road, waving my arms in an attempt to halt passing cars, but they just drove on by me. Finally, two or three minutes after my accident (which already seemed like an eternity) somebody pulled over and stopped. Two men emerged from the vehicle and asked me what was wrong.

(Dialogue in this entry will be translated into English for the ease of my monolingual readers.)

“I had an accident on my bike,” I explained. “And I think something’s wrong with my leg.” I offered them my hand and introduced myself. “I’m Ada.”

They helped me to my feet. I tried to put weight on my left leg. I screamed. Since I couldn’t walk, the younger man picked me up and carried me to the car, setting me in the front seat. After establishing who I was (Ada M., teaching assistant), where I came from (the United States), and that nobody was home to look after me, the men put my bike in the ditch for safekeeping and drove me to the nearest doctor’s office.

We’d been on the road for less than a minute when everything went dark all around me. I willed myself not to lose consciousness. I feared that I was bleeding internally and that if I passed out I wouldn’t wake up again. “I can’t see anything! Everything’s black!” I exclaimed. I lifted my leg and rested it on the dashboard. This helped. I could see a little, but without details. Driving through the forest I saw only the outlines of the trees, all green and black—a cross between a photographic negative and a silhouette. The darkness didn’t resolve itself until we reached the doctor’s office’s parking lot.

The younger man carried me inside. A nurse took off my shoe and sock. My ankle was bent at about a 70 degree angle and already grotesquely swollen. “Is it broken?” I asked. “Almost certainly,” the doctor said. They pressed on my other leg, stomach, ribs, back, head. “Does that hurt?” Thankfully nothing else did.

I didn’t have my insurance card on me—or any other form of identification—and I didn’t know my home phone number, my insurance policy number, or anything important. Without the card, I couldn’t receive any treatment.

I started to cry. The nurse stroked my cheek and tried to distract me.
The doctor called the hospital in Bautzen. They agreed to send an ambulance. Somebody would have to bring the insurance card later. After what seemed like forever, the ambulance showed up. It looked just like the one in Run Lola Run. On the way to the hospital they joked that it was nice to pick up a cute young girl for a change. “Normally we get heart attack and stroke victims. They’re always ancient.”

After reaching the hospital I made small talk with the ER nurse (actually the mother of two of my students) in order to keep myself from crying again. Whenever she had to leave me alone for a few seconds I recited poetry to myself. “I saw the best minds of my generation/ destroyed by madness/ starving hysterical naked/ roaming the Negro streets at dawn…” As I explained it to the X-ray nurse, “Excuse me for babbling. If I shut up I’ll start sobbing.”

She had to twist my ankle to fit it onto the screen. I screamed for my mother like a little girl. They couldn’t give me any painkillers, although I literally shook from pain. It was hard to hold still long enough to get a decent picture.

Explaining myself to the receiving nurses made me feel like someone from another planet. I knew my address, but not my phone number.

“Family doctor?”

“I don’t have one. I’ve only been in Germany since September 1st and I never needed a doctor until now.”

“How tall are you?”

“I have no idea. We don’t use the metric system.”

“And how much do you weigh?”

Thanks to my host family’s bathroom scale, I could answer this one. “51 kilograms.”

“Closest relative?”

“My parents.”

“And where are they?”

“In Michigan.”

“Closest relative in Germany?”

“I don’t have any family here.”

“How about a boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

A doctor came in and explained that I had broken my ankle—both bones—and required immediate surgery. If we waited, the ankle would swell so badly that operating would be impossible for seven days. The proposed operation, which would stabilize my ankle with 13 screws, required full anesthesia.

We tried unsuccessfully to reach my parents at work. First they got my mom’s voice mail, then my dad’s boss hung up on us because the operator at the hospital spoke no English. Finally I did get ahold of my dad and explained the situation. But there was another problem—no one at my host family’s house was answering the telephone. Finally I suggested that they try my boss instead. Success!

They wheeled me into the operating room at 9:30pm. It looked exactly like operating rooms always do in movies. This was not at all reassuring. The nurses strapped my arms down and covered me with a thin blanket. Then they started the anesthesia. “You’ll be out in less than a minute,” the anesthesiologist reassured me.

I felt a little sick. Things went black again, just like earlier in the car.

When I woke up I puked in my hair. “Wir sehen die Spaghetti wieder!” (“Here comes the spaghetti again!”) said one of the nurses. (I left this bit in German because I think it sounds funnier in the original language.)

Somebody gave me a shot in my good leg to dull the pain. (Morphine?) Then I went to sleep, all alone in a foreign hospital.

Teeth of a Nation

2004-10-05T07:16:00.000+02:00

Things around here have improved somewhat. My host family (or landlords, or whatever) have warmed up to me a bit, and there is now one resident of my village who greets me enthusiastically whenever he sees me. His name is Ajax. He´s a German Shepherd. The only human resident of my dorf who says `Guten Tag´to me on a consistent basis (other than the people I live with, I mean) is a teenage girl named Jenny who is actually one of my students. But one feels a lot better than none!

Things at school are going better too. I´m having a lot of fun with the kids (especially the younger ones) and they seem to like me. One of my eighth grade girls gave me a little present today-- information about the Sorbian theatre company in Bautzen!

The television in my room still doesn´t work, but the landlords are working on that. For now I watch the news in the kitchen while I cook my Mittagessen (hot midday meal-- the main meal of the day in Germany). It´s not quite the same without Peter Jennings, but I´m learning to live with that.

While watching the news the other day, I heard that it looks like Mount St. Helens is about to erupt again... Special greetings to my German prof, ID, who had her high school graduation cancelled when it blew its top the first time! (All 26 members of her graduating class were bitterly disappointed.)

Someone once told me that `You can tell who´s an Ossi (East German) as soon as they open their mouth.` Strange dialects that use the word ´nie` instead of `nicht`aside, this has nothing to do with the accent... It´s their teeth. East Germans over about 40 almost uniformly have terrible teeth. This isn´t due to inadequacies of the Communist health care system (which actually was pretty good), but rather to difficulties in importing fluoride, which led to poor-quality toothpaste. Which led to teeth that are sometimes (to quote Frank McCourt, who was actually talking about a kid in Ireland, but oh well) `white. And black. And green.`

I said they almost uniformly have terrible teeth, because there are exceptions.

I wonder a lot about the exceptions. They could have just had their teeth fixed up after the Wende (German for Reunification), but I have another theory.

I think it has to do with the Stasi (former East German secret police).

I gave a report on the Stasi in German class once, so I know that lots of people snitched on their neighbors for small favors and Western goods. Possibly including toothpaste... I can just imagine the conversations that must have taken place.

`Listen, I´ll tell you the names of everybody in my village who´s been making derogatory jokes about the Socialist Unity Party, but only if you hook me up with some West German toothpaste. The good kind, with fluoride, tartar-control, and whitening power...`

(Note: This is really not nearly as far-fetched as it sounds. 1 in 40 East Germans were Stasi informants! This means that even in a dinky little dorf like the one I live in, around 3 people cooperated with the secret police at some time in their lives!)

Tracht

2004-10-01T13:52:00.000+02:00

Yesterday the English teacher drove me to Bautzen so I could complete my visa application. I now boast a special stamp in my passport identifying me as a legal temporary resident of Germany. Without the visa Americans are only allowed to stay for three months-- with it, I can be here for ten!

After clearing this important burocratic hurdle I celebrated with a trip to a Turkish fast food joint for a Döner Kebab (something like a gyro, only better) and then to the book store, where I purchased a coffee-table book on Sorbian Tracht.

Tracht is the German word for folk-costumes: you know, the colorful local dress that provincial types put on for special occasions-- like Lederhosen, for example. (Interestingly, Lederhosen are only part of the Tracht in Bavaria and Austria-- not all German-speaking people wear them!) The Sorbs don´t wear Lederhosen (although I own a pair-- they were a gift from a family friend), and in fact the men don´t have much Tracht at all. But Lusatia is a veritable haven for women´s Tracht! Within Lusatia, which by itself is only about the size of Delaware, there are around 13 different mini-regions with their own Tracht traditions. And it goes further-- each mini-region has its own specific Trachten for working in summer, working in winter, working during the harvest, brides, bride´s maids, mothers of brides, godmothers (married or unmarried), schoolgirls, going to a dance in your own village, going to a dance in a neighboring village, going shopping, going to church, taking communion (but only if Protestant), confirmation (but only if Catholic), mourning close relatives, mourning not-so-close relatives, etc.

While today most Sorbian women only wear Trachten on special occasions (like weddings), there are still some old ladies who wear it every day. I have yet to meet one though.

Having always had a weakness for folk costumes, I am in heaven! I actually would like to buy a Tracht of my very own, except that it would be prohibitively expense and I´d never get a chance to wear it.

It´s time to let you in on a little secret. When I was about ten, I grew bored with my monolingual suburban upbringing. So I invented my own culture, which was called Glunt. I created a language (which I could actually speak), a cuisine (based around dandelions, of all things), a religion (pagan with Christian overtones), an educational system (including beadwork and folkdancing classes)-- and yes, Trachten. I created my very own everyday Tracht, holiday Tracht, religious Tracht, sleeping Tracht, and even swimming Tracht. While I was never able to actually sew them, in my imagination and on my drawing boards they were very real. I constantly pretended that I was in, or from, Glunt, and I coerced my then-best-friend, an easygoing fundamentalist Christian named Jenny, to play along.

I am disappointed that my Trachten were not nearly as elaborate or interesting as the Sorbian ones. I´ve always thought that I was such an imaginative child! Apparently fashion design was not my forte.

Now, if you´ll excuse me, I have to go put on my grocery-shopping Tracht.

Sick Day

2004-09-30T13:25:00.000+02:00

On Tuesday I evening I hiked from my home village to the village of Kauppa (Kupoj in Sorbian). It´s a really pretty village, surrounded by ponds with little islands in them. Unfortunately I got lost on the way back and spent a lot longer in the forest than I had previously anticipated. Being out in the damp cold for so long seems to have weakened my immune system-- I woke up on Wednesday morning with the flu (or something). Not the puking sort of flu, thank God, just the `my head aches and my back aches and my stomach aches and places I didn´t even think could ache (toes?!) ache´kind.

So I stayed home from school. I sat in my little room and read Buddenbrooks, and slept, and drank herbal tea. I´m pretty darn sure that I had a fever, but without a thermometer I had no way to measure that. It´s just as well, since I don´t know what temperature the human body is supposed to be in Celsius, anyway. At any rate I alternately sweated and had the chills.

During my sick day, I accidentally locked myself in the bathroom and had to call for help, I fell down the stairs (after visiting the kitchen to get a fork with which to eat my pickled herring), and I experienced the great frustration of having a caller hang up on me because she couldn´t understand my accent.

I´m back at school today (as is evident by the fact that I´m able to post this!), but mainly so that I can use the Internet and because I need to go to Bautzen this afternoon and finish my visa application.

I think that I´m slowly adjusting to European culture. I´ve acquired a taste for carbonated water, for one thing. I find myself cooking things like potatoes with curds and linseed oil (the Sorbian national dish). I automatically close doors. I no longer flinch at the sight of anatomically correct garden gnomes.

Perhaps things will go uphill from here.

Cultural Differences

2004-09-28T11:36:00.000+02:00

Please accent my apologies for the delay between postings. As some of you may have guessed, I don´t have internet access on weekends, and on Mondays I´m generally too busy with catching up on email to worry about my blog.

Anyhow, I´m currently in the deepest pits of culture shock, very lonely and reasonably miserable. None of my fellow villagers are anywhere near my age, and since there´s no public transportation to Bautzen in the evening or on weekends, I´m quite isolated. This weekend I hiked to three of the nearby villages (which all more or less look the same, although the forest in between is gorgeous) and did some reading. I also ate Sunday dinner with my hosts-- once a week they let me join them at the table. Unfortunately it is quite obvious that my prescence makes them unfortable. They look very nervous and never know what to say. This in turn makes me nervous, which makes my German go downhill, which causes them to (incorrectly) assume that I don´t understand most of what they´re saying, so it´s not worth the hassle to talk to me.

This morning I arrived at my first period class literally ten seconds after the bell stopped ringing. My boss scowled at me and said, ´Late again?` I felt like smirking at her and hissing that by the standards of my own culture, I wasn´t late, but of course I didn´t. I just sat there and felt smug when she pronounced the word ´verb´as if it started with a W.

Yesterday at the market I had trouble locating the baking powder. I had expected it to come in a box of some kind, but no, it´s sold in packets here. (Germans would call the market a Supermarkt, but it isn´t any bigger than a typical Mom and Pop shop in the US, so I feel that it´s unworthy of the name.)

Some of my (male) students don´t wash more than once a week or so, and it´s noticeable!

I don´t want to go home. I just wish there was somebody nearby who I could sit around and bitch with. It´s not as satisfying to do it long-distance...

Dorf

2004-09-23T11:44:00.000+02:00

I went on a walking tour of my village yesterday. The place is tiny-- actually smaller than my subdivision back home! I think there are around 20 houses, plus one small shop that sells essential grocery items. No post office, no church, not even a bar (!)-- although there is a bus stop. Apparently there are 143 residents.

The village itself is quite pretty. Most of the houses are in good repair, and the handful that aren´t just add to the DDR charm. There are fruit trees all over the place, and a fair number of people have livestock in their yards. Sheep seem to be the most popular choice (my physical therapist friend explained to me that people keep them as lawnmowers), but I also saw some goats and a pony. I haven´t seen any chickens yet, although I´ve heard them.

The residents all kind of look alike. Most have jet-black hair. (I suppose that´s what happens when your ancestors lived in the same locale for hundreds of years. ) They´re not a friendly bunch. I tried to say ´Guten Tag´to people on the street yesterday (I´ve been told that this is village good manners). Most of them just looked at me funny. Only a couple bothered to reply.

Today at school I helped my ninth-graders practice proper English intonation. Germans tend to speak in a very flat, low-pitched tone, and they transfer this to their English. However, in English it makes them sound extremely serious (at best) or downright suicidal (at worst). They also favor one-word answers and hardly ever say ´please´or ´thank you.´ Hence the special ´Friendliness and Politeness´training, which is actually written into the curriculum!

I wonder why ID never went over the proper way to be brusque, harsh, and overly blunt in Geman class? I could have used the training.

Obligatory Linguistics Lesson

2004-09-22T10:19:00.000+02:00

First, to clarify something in my last post, since there appears to have been some confusion among my readers: The dialect I was talking about is not Sorbian, but rather the local version of German. Sorbian is a lot more different from German than the Oberlausitz dialect is!

Example:
Ich heiße Ada. (I am called Ada-- standard German).
Ich heeß Ada. (I am called Ada-- Oberlausitz German).
Rékam Ada. (I am called Ada-- standard Upper Sorbian).

Sorbian is a West-Slavic language most closely related to Polish, Kashubian, Czech and Slovak. German is a West-Germanic language most closely related to Yiddish, English, Frisian, and Dutch. Sorry for the misunderstanding-- I should have been more clear!

Anyway, I moved into my new room yesterday. So far my host family seems really nice. I like my room (in a basement, but well-lit and very comfortable). One nice thing is that I don´t have to hang out at school all day waiting for my boss anymore. I can ride on over on my bike (borrowed from the boss) in the morning, then ride back as soon as I´m finished with my classes. My plan for today is to do some shopping, have a look around my village, and then hunker down with Thomas Mann. But first, of course, I have to finish unpacking!

Der Rück´n dut mir verdommt Weh

2004-09-21T11:04:00.000+02:00

Things here are going relatively well. I spent the weekend hanging out with a young friend of my boss, who is 22 and lives in a village about an hour south of here. We visited a museum and then went bowling with some of friends. I had a good time, although I´m a terrible bowler (which should come as no surprise to any of you!) and I got kind of sick of explaining over and over that no, actually we in Ami-land don´t really eat fast food every day.

The downside of my weekend stay in the village of Schönbach is that my back now hurts like an expletive which I will refrain from typing in my blog... My new friend is a physical therapist and has undertaken the correction of my bad posture. Apparently the tendons in my neck and upper back are all abnormally short (three guesses why) and I now need to do corrective stretching and back-strengthening exercises. Perhaps this will help in the long-run, but right now I´m jonesing for some Tylenol 3.

So, yesterday I took a look at the room that I´ll probably be staying in. It´s in a basement, but it´s very nicely furnished and I get my own toilet, shower, and mini-fridge, as well as full access to the kitchen, living room, and back yard. The lady of the house will take me with her when she does her grocery shopping (saving me from transporting my groceries on a bike rack); I can eat with the family on weekends; and if they go on short weekend excursions I´m welcome to come along. The only problem is that my rent is rather steep for this area-- €220 per month, including utilities. But I doubt I´ll find anything cheaper, so I´m taking it.

My second adventure today was at the local Sparkasse (savings bank). It took about an hour and a half to open my account, because they don´t get too many American temporary residents in this village and weren´t sure what to do with me at first. Then it turned out that it will take about a week for the travelers´checks I deposited to show up in my account-- lovely. I will have to pay my first month´s rent in cash.

In addition to my biweekly Sorbian lessons, I am also learning the local Oberlausitz dialect. I´m not receiving formal instruction, and I have no immediate plans to learn to actually speak Oberlausitz-- my goal is comprehension. At the present time I can understand about 90% of what is said to me, provided that the Oberlausitzer in question speaks slowly. The dialect is fairly divergent from standard German. For example, Itze gehma daheeme means Jetzt gehen wir nach Hause (let´s go home now) and instead of Ich weiß es auch nicht (I don´t know that either) the locals say Ich weeßes oo(ch) nie.

Ja wanna trade places with me? C´mon, it´s easy-- and it´s not like we don´t speak a dialect too, hey?

Bautzener Mulletland

2004-09-16T08:35:00.000+02:00

I don´t know whether it´s an Ossi (East German) thing or just a German thing, but the Oberlausitz is definitely one mullet-intensive region. Probably 10% of the population here walks around sporting mullets. The amount of ´party in the back´varies by gender, age, and occupation-- but really it´s just variations on the ´Canadian waterfall´theme.

My host´s son, for example, is a nice, quite normal, and otherwise good-looking fellow in his mid-twenties. He has a quite short, unobtrusive blond mullet.

Little girls tend to wear close-cropped hair on the top and sides with a short, curly mullet in the back. I believe that my brother favored a similar hairstyle when he was six or so.

Middle-aged men often wear a longer mullet that is a bit spiky on top.

I get the impression that this is not in general a very stylish area. It might be compared to Michigan´s Upper Peninsula.

I´m afraid to get my hair cut here. When the time comes, I might just hop a train to Nordrhein-Westfalen and ask the Jewkrainian to do it.

Good Morning, Boys and Girls

2004-09-15T09:56:00.000+02:00

My name is Ms. Muncy. (Point to name on chalkboard.) I come from Michigan in the United States. I am a kind of English teacher. I will be here at the Mittelschule D. for the next ten months. My job is to help you learn English. Do you have any questions for me?

So, that´s my spiel. I´ve been repeating it several times a day for the past three days. Really I´ll only be working with four or five classes on a regular basis, but I plan to sit in on each English class at least once so all the students know who I am. Also so they know that I´m not once of them. Several have already mistaken me for ´the new girl.´ To (over) compensate for my small stature, I´ve been wearing a lot of ´teacher clothes´(even though most of the real teachers come in jeans), make-up, perfume, etc. The English teachers emphasize that the students should call me by my last name (hard to get used to!) and address me by the
formal ´Sie´.

The kids are great. I especially like the eighth graders. They´re so enthusiastic! Yesterday evening the boss and I walked over and visited them (they were on a kind of school-sponsored camping trip at a local fish pond) and a big group of girls cornered me and asked me:
-Where do you put cows and horses and other big animals during a tornado? (I have no idea. Aunt Judy, can you maybe help me out with this one?)
-Has your house ever blown away? (No.)
-Were you ever in a hurricane? (No.)
-Are American men good looking? (I said that some are-- I omitted the fact that I´m probably not the best person to ask!)

Other stuff that´s new:

-Sorbian lessons with Herr B. start tomorrow! I´m pretty excited. :)

-Yesterday was a Wandertag (class hiking trip). The ninth grade vocational students and I walked to a local reservoir and back-- it took about three and a half hours. Then in the afternoon, my mentor (the main English teacher) took me on a walking tour of Bautzen. In the evening, I took a long walk with my boss. Really I enjoyed all of this, but it left me rather exhausted.

-I think in German before I think in English!

-A surprise: apparently, 10-15 years ago East German parents became very fond of
old-fashioned English and American names, especially for their daughters. There are several Peggys, a Sally, at least eight Melanies, two Lindas, and even a Kevin! These are NOT German names. --There are however, no students called Traudl, Hedwig, Helmut, or Otto. Which is good, because I don´t think I could call on a girl named ´Traudl´without cracking up.

-Some of the older boys have a severe hygiene problem Simply put, they stink. The girls seem pretty clean though.

That´s all for now!

First Day of School

2004-09-13T20:26:00.001+02:00

Today was my first day at the Mittelschule. It actually went quite well, although I had to get up at about six o´clock this morning (also known as `the crack of dawn´) and then they scared me by starting me off with a class consisting solely of kids with learning or behavioral problems. Thankfully I was there as an observer more than as an assistant.

I will be assisting with the eighth- and tenth-graders on a regular basis. The 10th-graders are already pubescent and jaded and kind of sullen, but the 8th-graders are still surprisingly little and cute and very excited about learning English from a Real Live American.

Stuff that happened at school today:

-They gave me a Schultüte (paper cone filled with candy and teacher supplies). This is a German custom that normally involves kids beginning the first grade-- their very first day of school.

-My boss (Mrs. M) introduced me to two Sorbian-speaking 8th graders, AND arranged for the Sorbian teacher to give me private lessons twice a week! Fantastic!

-The tenth graders had to give little reports about pop stars in class. One kid chose a German folk music band called Die Randfichten who use accordions and sing traditional songs. He was really into it, too. The poster for the band looked like the one hanging behind the son´s bed in Fargo.

-The 8th graders made a special presentation for me.

Tomorrow I´m going hiking with the students (the whole school is going on an excursion) and then the English teacher is taking me to Bautzen to try and figure out my Aufenthaltserlaubnis (residence permit). I don´t know whether that will work out, though, since the principal doesn´t know anything about my insurance card (which she theoretically should have) and I don´t have a permanent address yet, either. I anticipate that the whole bureaucratic nonsense will be a major pain in an unpleasant place. Alas...

In other news, I´ve been speaking so much German that it is actually kind of difficult to write this in English. However, my German is terrible! I find myself making all kinds of errors, which I then notice immediately after they leave my mouth, and I can never remember what gender anything is. Ugh. Oh well. People compliment on my German anyway. But maybe they´re just being nice.

Let´s Git Orientated

2004-09-11T22:18:00.000+02:00

I´m really sorry for the time lapse between posts, but there was one computer with internet access at the orientation site, and this had to be enough for almost 200 people. Needless to say, I didn´t get online while I was there. But anyhow, orientation was fantastic.

Monday morning I dragged my luggage to the train station where about 100 other future teaching assistants were milling about. I talked to a couple of people, and then something kind of funny happened. I recognized this girl from my plane (from Frankfurt to Köln). I remember thinking that she looked the right age to be a teaching assistant, and I wanted to talk to her, but I was so tired and shy that I didn´t risk it. So the two of us kind of just stared at each other. Then we went our separate ways. Well, at the train station it became clear that she was indeed a fellow TA, and we recognized each other, so we sat together on the bus to Altenburg. Anyhow it turns out that this girl (henceforth simply `the Jewkrainian`) was pretty cool, and I suppose we bonded, because we hung out most of the time from then on.

Most of the time at orientation we were herded into a large room to listen to lectures, or in small rooms for group work, but there was also plenty of time to socialize and get to know people. Having a winning personality (in addition to epilepsy, Tourette´s syndrome, and a problem with my jaw) I naturally made some friends: the Baileys from Arkansas (a cool young couple who will be in a dorf in Rheinland-Pfalz), MO (going to Niedersachsen), CA (I forget where they´re putting him), ME (Saarland), MN (in Sachsen, near me!) and a few more. And the Jewkrainian too of course, who will be in a dorf in Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Highlights of the Orientation
-Staying up way too late talking to my roommate, MN.

-Helping one of the Baileys (and it should be very obvious which one!) stuff a maxi pad under her knit hat because she didn´t have any pockets.

-Reacquiring my highschool habit of cursing like a drunken sailor. I blame this on my new companions.

-Chocolate. Ice cream!

-Performing my ´Frau Uhltzscht´impression for the entire conference at the variety show, with the Jewkrainian as an extremely southern school secretary. We were quite a success. (For those who don´t know, Frau Uhltzscht is an imaginary German Hausfrau who needs to call an elementary school and enquire about the welfare of her children. This is how I bother my mother when she´s at work.)

-Drinking way too much wine on our last night in Altenburg and having MO and the Jewkrainian tell me that I was acting like a person on acid. (They know this from hearsay only, of course... Ahem...)

More tomorrow, I hope...

Another Day in Köln

2004-09-04T16:13:00.000+02:00

Note to uncle: this post contains some sacriligeous jokes. Do not print for Granny!

I'm on a computer with a European-style keyboard this time, so I can make umlauts! (This makes me happier than it should.)

In the past two days I've done a lot of exploring of the city: Römisches-Germanisches Museum (Köln was a Roman colony; this museum displays artifacts from the city's Roman past), Ludwig Museum (an excellent collection of modern art), and the Altstadt (old town). One painting that I particularly enjoyed depicted an exasperated Mary taking the baby Jesus over her knee and spanking him. Unfortunately I don't remember who painted it.

Today I attempted to see the Sankt-Ursula-Kirche, which features a Goldenes Kammer containting about 800 skulls. The skulls are supposed to be some of the 11,000 virgins who, along with Ursula herself, were massacred by the Huns (a marauding tribe noted for their lack of respect for perpetual virginity). --I think the '11,000' figure has got to be inflated-- there wouldn't have been any virgins left in the Rhein region! Anyhow, the church is closed for renovations, and to see the Kammer you have to schedule an appointment with the rectory, so it was a no-go.

Later this afternoon I plan to visit a museum dedicated to one of my favorite things in the world: chocolate. There are supposed to be free samples.

In other news, the middle-aged Indian businessmen who have commandeered the hostel don't clean up after themselves in the kitchen. As my new buddy Monica from Alberta puts it, 'They're useless without their wives.' Since the rest of us need to use the kitchen, too, the Albertans have washed their dishes for them-- twice! It's very frustrating.

Off to the Schokolade-Museum!

Greetings from Koeln

2004-09-02T18:45:00.000+02:00

You had all better appreciate this post, because I had to go through the seventh circle of hell to get here!

Let me explain.

Both flights were fine. My baggage arrived with me. Things were going well, but then the fun began.

1. I had to wander around the airport for at least 15 minutes looking for a place I could change my money. This might not sound bad, but bear in mind that I was pulling/carrying/wearing luggage that weighs, collectively, more than me. Seriously. My luggage weighs approximately 135 pounds (estimating conservatively); I weigh 112 pounds. You do the math.

2. Then, I had an equal amount of trouble figuring out how to get to the underground train station in order to get from Koeln-Bonn Airport to Koeln proper. Still pulling the luggage!

3. Luggage in tow, now at the Koeln Hauptbahnhof (main train station), I had to buy a 10 euro phone card in order to use the pay phones. (The dollar is weaker than the euro now, so this works out to about $12 American.) I needed the phone card to call various Youth Hostels and see whether any might have room for me. Well, I made my first phone call, got an answering machine-- and the telephone automat ate my card. $12 spent for nothing!

4. I got lost in the train station attempting to find the taxis.

5. When I was very close to physical collapse, a nice koelscher Jung (male Cologne native) took pity on me and carried my bags to the taxi. Which he helped me find. An old man yelled at him for not carrying all of it. "Merken Sie nicht, die Dame ist schwach!" yelled the old guy. ("Don't you notice how weak the lady is!") --Ok, so this was a good part. :)

6. The first hostel that I had the cabby take me to no longer exists. So he had to drive me to another one, which of course only cost more money.

But things improved from there. Some kindly Albertans (people from the province of Alberta, Canada-- not some weird religious order!) took me under their wing, helped me find a grocery store and gave me sight-seeing advice. So I ate and then saw the sights.

Interesting things I've seen today:
-There was a lady with facial tattoos in the airport. She looked Berber. (Some Berber tribes practice that sort of thing.)
-I visited the famous Koelner Dom (cathedral) and climbed all 500 steps to the top-- and then climbed back down. And then sat in the cathedral for about 45 minutes catching my breath.
-The restaurant next door to my hostel is called "Ristorante da Damiano." Those of you from the German program will understand why this amuses me.

Last Post from the U.S.

2004-09-01T15:08:00.000+02:00

This will be my last post from this side of the Atlantic. I should depart DTW at 6:05 pm, and arrive in Frankfurt am Main at 8:05 am tomorrow morning (which is 2:05 am Michigan time-- this is why jet lag happens!). Then, at 9:30 am, I'll hop on my final flight, which will take me to Koeln (that's "Cologne" to you monolinguals).

I'll be spending four days bumming around in Koeln before my orientation starts on September 10th. (Orientation is in Altenberg, near Koeln.)

I said four more goodbyes yesterday. The German Literature Stammtisch met for one last time before my trip: this will be my last time hanging out with IA, BC, SW, and MIT for 10 months! (ID couldn't make it; she had to attend some sort of union arbitration meeting.) That will seem strange, since I'm used to seeing them all once a week.

After we finished our meal and were walking to the parking lot, I said, "I'm sad!" So they asked me why. "Because I miss you guys already!" So then BC said, "The world is your oyster. All you have to do is open it." Which was reassuring. The world seems much more manageable if you think of it as an edible marine mollusk.

Who knows? Maybe I'll find a pearl.

And How Close are YOU with Joe McCarthy?

2004-08-31T04:16:00.000+02:00

Packing is pretty much done. The only things I haven't packed yet are my toiletries and a few other items that I really won't be able to put away until Wednesday morning.

Oh, since I forgot this in my last entry: Congratulations to my dad, who sold his first car on Saturday! It was a Big Stupid SUV (is there any other kind?), but we'll forgive him for that. After all, he just sold the thing, he didn't design it. --This is why I personally could never sell cars. A customer would approach me about purchasing a Yukon or some damned thing and I would say, "Do you realize how much your purchase of this vehicle would contribute to global warming? Have you considered just getting a bicycle?"

In other news, the Rotarians are stupid. Ok, that was a little too general. To rephrase, allow me to say that the specific Rotarians who passed up my friend KK for a scholarship award are stupid. Profoundly, criminally stupid. She was, if anything, overqualified for the award-- speaks fluent German (she wanted to study in Graz, Austria), outgoing, confident, a good student, etc. She even made contact with an academic there who was willing to work with her!

We think that they may have discriminated against her for political reasons.

In her interview, she was asked, "What would you like to see change in America?" So, KK mentioned improved funding for education and health care. A safe enough answer, so it seemed. But then, the Head Rotarian (a rich, old, WASPy guy) glared at her and asked, "And how are you going to pay for that?" To which KK answered, "Taxes." (This was the wrong answer. The correct answer would have been: "Bomb some countries in the Middle East back into the Stone Age and take all their oil.") So, the Head Rotarian asked KK just how close she was with Josef Stalin.

At the time she thought he was kidding. Now she's not so sure.

Anyhow, KK and I hung out for what will probably be the last time for ten months tonight. First we went to the batting cages so she could pretend that some softballs were Rotarians, then we went out for ice cream. I had a good time.

Preparing to Pack

2004-08-30T20:48:00.000+02:00

I know that I said I'd be updating every day until I leave for Germany, and I didn't post anything either yesterday or the day before... I'm sorry. I've just been really, really busy. I hope that's understandable! Only two days left in Michigan now...

So here's what's up.

-I visited my friend IA at her house on Saturday. IA was a Fulbright Student back in the day (1987 I think?), in the pretty Hessian town of Marburg. She showed me a bunch of pictures from her Fulbright year, and offered me some very good advice: namely, to keep in touch with the friends I'll make over there!

-Finally finished with Das siebte Kreuz!

-Both of the Hostelling International youth hostels in Koeln are booked up for the four nights I'll be spending there... Apparently the other Teaching Assistants were savvier than I and reserved their beds more than three days in advance. So I'll probably stay at a private hostel instead, or maybe even a bed and breakfast (provided that's not too expensive).

And the agenda for today? Packing, packing, packing! As soon as my laundry is done I'm going to start loading up my suitcases. My friend KK (who spent a year as an exchange student in Hamburg) recommends "vacuum packing" my clothes in sealed freezer bags. I'll try that-- hopefully it will help me save some space. Now, if only I could find some way to make my massive Harper-Collins German-English English-German Unabridged Dictionary take up less room (and weigh less). Freeze drying, perhaps?

More Goodbyes

2004-08-28T03:38:00.000+02:00

I'm just about finished with Das Siebte Kreuz. Six more pages to go! Actually, I have finished the main body of the text, which I very much enjoyed. Now I'm working on the afterword. After that, I'll probably take a break from German books-- until I arrive in Germany, at which time I plan to begin Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. This will be a long project. It's about 800 pages long, and Mann's Der Tod in Venedig, which had only 110 pages or so, took me over a month to read. The nineteenth-century vocabulary makes it very difficult indeed.

I drove to Ypsi today to return some books that I borrowed from a TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) professor back in April. While I was there I thought I'd check to see whether my favorite German Literature professor (ID) was in her office, since they share the same building. Well, she wasn't in her own office-- but I did catch her emerging from a meeting in the other German prof's office! I had hoped to talk with her about my upcoming teaching assistantship-- ID knows something about Fulbright Teaching Assistantships in Germany, since she was a Fulbright TA in Bielefeld way back in 1990. Besides, she's the person who suggested that I apply to begin with and who guided me through the application process.

Unfortunately, ID was too busy to talk because she's frantically preparing a manuscript for publication. But, she did have time to wish me good luck and give me a goodbye hug. So it wasn't a total loss.

I'll miss ID. Whereas with my little brother I thought, "Who will I rip on now?", with ID I think, "And who's going to pick on me?"

After that I walked over to our campus' main classroom building to say goodbye to my syntax prof. (I looked for my other linguistics profs, too, but they weren't in their offices.) He was also extremely busy, but we chatted briefly. Unfortunately our conversation was repeatedly interrupted by blasts of horrible noise. The noise was supposedly caused by tests of the fire alarm system, but I suspect that they were actually testing those new sound-based weapons that the NYPD are planning to use against people who protest at the Republican National Convention...

Then I drove home and let my pet coyote out of her cage. She acted like she'd just been liberated from the Bastille.

2004-08-27T04:53:00.000+02:00

Current location: parents' house (Canton, Michigan, USA)

The first couple of posts here (see below) were already published somewhere else; apologies to those of you who had to read them twice! At any rate, my preparations are still humming along. New developments:

-All locks have been purchased.

-I updated my resume, packed up the books I'm having shipped and took my photos in to be developed.

-I said goodbye to my brother this evening. My little brother (ok, so he's ten inches taller than me-- he's still three years younger, dammit!) left to go back to college tonight. (He's renting this truly hideous house in the happening town of Big Rapids, Michigan. It has multicolored shag carpenting in every room, kitchen inclusive, and wallpaper with brown flowers.) Since his classes start on Monday and he's working Saturday, it's very doubtful that he'll be coming home again before I fly to Europe. So I won't see him for about 10 months. (He says that he'll visit me in Germany if he can find a way to drive there-- the kid hates to fly. Also if I'll rent a car in my own name and let him drive on the Autobahn at 190 mph.) Jeez, that's weird. Who am I going to rip on?

To Do List:
1. Mend pants!
2. Pack!
3. Get mom's name on savings account for emergency purposes.
4. Finish Das siebte Kreuz.

On the surface this may look somewhat less daunting than my previous to-do lists, but the packing will be quite a major job.

Oh! A note on the time signatures. I have them set to German time-- I'm not a night owl, really. To determine what time I actually posted an entry (while I'm still in the US), subtract 6 hours.

Too Much to Do

2004-08-27T04:43:00.000+02:00

This entry is essentially another Fulbright preparation update. I hardly have time to think about anything else, so I certainly don't have time to write about anything else!

It turns out that I don't need to buy insurance after all. My laptop and recording equipment are already insured through my parents' AAA Homeowners' Insurance policy. They'll insure my luggage up to $3,000. This is a relief!

Nor do I need to bring extra carry-on luggage. My laptop case counts as "personal item." As long as I can fit my purse into my backpack with my recording equipment (and as should be able to, since it isn't a large purse), I'll be fine.

Travelers' Checks have been taken care of. However, I'll wait to exchange my cash for Euros until I'm in Germany, since I'd get a better rate there.

I have a horrible case of insomnia. I've gotten less than 7 hours sleep each of the last three nights. I realize that this wouldn't be a problem for most people, but I'm epileptic. If I don't get about 9 hours of sleep per night I'm prone to seizures. --While I can't definitively say I know why I can't sleep, I'm blaming stress.

Stuff I Still Need to Do:

1. Purchase locks for my suitcases, a combination lock for Youth Hostel lockers, and a bike lock for locking my bags to the luggage rails on trains.
2. Contact the Linguistics department at U of O about reapplying; update my grad school application resume.
3. Organize books to be mailed.
4. Mend these pants I want to take with me that are missing a button.
5. Develop the pictures I took of my parents' house; arrange them in the scrapbook I'm making for my future students (to show them "typical American life").
6. Do a whole bunch of laundry.
7. Pack!

Fulbright Preparation Update

2004-08-27T04:41:00.000+02:00

Friday, August 20, 2004

Just a quick update to let you know what's going on in the Fulbright Preparation world. Sorry I haven't been posting very often lately; as you might imagine, I've been very busy!
-My laptop has arrived. In fact, I'm typing on it right now! So far I'm quite pleased with it. I've already downloaded the Linguistics software that I need (IPA fonts from SIL; Praat; Bartek Plichta's cool phonetic analysis software Akustyk). Now I just need to play around with Praat and Akustyk a bit in order to familiarize myself with them before I leave for Deutschland!
-My winter clothes are "packed" in paper bags in the living room. My mom will mail them to me after I know what my address in Bautzen will be. I put my menorah and a box of Chanukah candles in the box, too, since I imagine such things are hard to come by in a country with a Jewish population of only 60,000 or so!
-PA and I tested out my field recorder and tabletop mic, and they both work really well. Unfortunately my lapel mic hasn't arrived yet, although I did get the battery pack for it yesterday.
-I got my hair cut to my shoulders yesterday. It looks pretty good! Since it's not weighed down nearly as much now, it's very curly-- I think that if I ever cut it as short as my brother's, it would be as curly as his! It feels strange not having to pull my hair back when I sleep. And my head feels so light, and my back is cold. (This is the first time I've had shoulder length hair in about 15 years.)
Things I Still Need to Accomplish in the Next 12 Days:
1. Get theft and damage insurance for laptop, field recorder, and microphones.
2. Find out how much Lufthansa would charge me for taking extra carry-on baggage-- all this electronic equipment needs to go on the plane with me, and I can't fit it all in one bag.
3. Get about 200 Euro in cash, plus another 1500 or so in Traveler's Checks.
4. Pack!
5. Arrange books that I want shipped to me in a paper bag, near my winter clothes.
6. (Hopefully) meet with IA and ID so the two of them can tell me about their Fulbright experiences, give me advice, and pick on me a little.
7. Put my mom's name on my bank account so she can withdraw money from it (for me) in an emergency.
8. Contact grad school about reapplying (as a formality. I know they'll accept me again.).
9. Update my resume and possibly draft a Statement of Purpose for grad school (again); get Letter of Rec forms to profs (again).
10. Get myself a raincoat.
11. Finish Anna Seghers' Das siebte Kreuz so that I won't have to take it with me.
There are probably other things as well, but mercifully I can't think of them at the moment.