School Days

I have a two hour break right now. I got here at 9.50 for French class, and usually during this time I either go two blocks down the street to the tiny grocery store to get a piece of bread, or I hide myself in the conference room to take a nap. This break is super long, and since I have next to no work to do, I usually get quite sleepy. so I decided to write this baby up, in order to keep my brain active. I am currently sitting in the Oberstufe room, it is for the teachers who are in charge of the 11th, 12th, and 13th grades. They get their own private room with a big table and three computers. It is also the only room in the school that is ever more than 60 degrees (its about 64).
Anyway I thought I would tell you a bit about how school is going. After having literally begged and threatened my way into more work, I have finally had a few weeks where I felt like my presence was not only noticed, but appreciated! I gave a presentation on Creole culture the other day. The kids are reading A Streetcar Named Desire, so they are learning all about Louisiana...well lets say the are learning specific facts about the state and some small tidbits about the New Orleans culture. Nothing too comprehensive...because they have huge tests about ever 5 weeks. Its like having a final every five weeks. Needless to say its a lot stress for the students and leaves little free time for some silly American to present on her culture in class.
I did, however, get to make pumpkin pie for my AP course on Thursday. We talked about the history of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and they at least all tried the pumpkin pie. They were all pretty weirded out by the pie...they have no concept of pie crust, nor do they understand the amount of sugar we put into our desserts. Chocolate cake in Germany is more like brown-colored bread with a little bit of sugar on it. Different, but still tasty. So we then went around the classroom and said what we are thankful for. It worked well--the kids took it seriously, and I think were very happy to have an opportunity to express themselves as individual human beings, rather than hard-working students. Although some students did not really get the difference between thanking someone and being thankful for something, so they just thanked me for bringing in the pie.
I just came from my French class, as I said, where I sit with a bunch of 8th graders who are in an advanced course. So they are already in the best type of high school possible, AND they are in an advanced class in the school. So, I think needless to say, they are quite proud of themselves. They also have a very close-knit community. These kids are expected to rule the country, and they are told this almost every day. Today we compared French schools to German schools. French schools are more similar to American schools in many respects: everyone gets to go to the same high school, the school day goes well into the afternoon, and students' behavior is strictly controlled while at school. (Personally I miss this, I cant name the number of times that I have been thrown into a wall or elbowed by some hoodlum 6th grader SPRINTING through the halls on the way to break.) The teacher intentionally painted this picture of a prison-like system, where idiots are together with geniuses, and the "intelligent" students have to babysit the "weak" or "lazy" students. Although I have been inundated with this attitude since I got here, I am still constantly surprised that even teachers will describe students, ESPECIALLY middle and high schoolers, as unintelligent! (You could at least wait until adulthood to give these people a chance to PROVE that they are idiots, because lets be honest here, everyone is a little idiotic in middle and high school.) Anyway, the students were totally astounded that the prison-like schools in France existed. And the teacher presented the German schools system as a dream-like paradise where they were extremely lucky to be surrounded by such intelligent people. (Lets talk about the dangerous hallways with full-speed trains of students or the back talking 12th graders, then ask who is lucky) Keep in mind, that while this was happening, down the hall was a drab classroom full of mostly Turkish students in the Hauptschule, who were probably there mostly due to language or cultural barriers. These are not often told they could run the country some day. Some of the kids in my French class even said, "Well what if you live in an area with a lot of immigrants? Do you have to be in the same classes as they are?" She responded "Unfortunately yes, if you live in that area you have to go to school with immigrants."
An important thing to remember here though, is that this is not unusual behavior for Germans...let me correct that. For the Germans I have met and have daily contact with. It is normal for the people I know here to expect to go to class, work, church, etc with people who look and talk like they do. And it is not a negative thing in this community to expect that kind of separation. As I look out the window over at the Hauptschule, I see only minorities, immigrants, or "Germans" who most likely have learning disorders or other problems that keep them from doing well at school. No one I have talked to about this is disturbed, actually they will very willingly defend the system. Describing an American public school is like trying to describe sharing to a 2 year old. They might say "well why should I have to give up some of my experience to make hers better?"
I will step off my soap box in a moment, but I wanted to make clear the attitudes of the teachers I see on a daily basis. These people are supportive teachers who care deeply about their students. But they expect a classroom full of students who can learn quickly, independently, and without any troubles. And even though there seems to be an elephant in the room about what "kind" of people go to which schools, no one seems to be troubled by this blatant separation.

Life otherwise is just swell. The sun has been shining for at least...3 hours. It will probably be pouring by the time I get on my bike to ride home, but its only about a 5 minute ride, then I will be safe and sound until my tutoring at 5.30. I will be making a tour of Christmas markets before I come home: Dortmond, Dinslaken, somewhere in Holland, Achen, and Gladbeck. I went to the one in Essen with an American friend and a British friend (that's right, I have friends all over this place!). Lots of cheer and fun...didn't find any amazing presents, but it was a unique experience, and it was nice to see a new side of German culture. We also had Thanksgiving on Saturday, I will post some pictures of that tonight--my big project.

Torrential Rain, Travels and Turkey

For some reason its been like torture trying to get this next blog out. I've been doing lots of fun stuff lately, but this rainy weather is just exhausting, and even though I am still spending most of the wet evenings on this red couch getting a computer tan, I am still just not motivated. And I think the forecast is rain for the next 7 months! (Honey, get the arc!)
I finally got the light on my bike fixed so I can ride in the rain, but, low and behold, its broken again. Super annoying, super mysterious. I think its a German gnome who doesn't want me out riding in the dark rain. Speaking of dark, it was still dark until the second period of school today.
So really fast: a run down of my travels in the past few weeks. I went to Duesseldorf, sponsored in full by the Northrhine Westphalia government! What a beautiful region I have to opportunity to live in! Its similar to the rust belt in the US...lots of scenic industry parks, run down factories, and old coal mines. I am particularlly impressed with the pride the people have in their pasts, though. We went to a beautiful and well-kept industry museum on our propaganda tour of the region, and were suddendly in a coal mine! It was mine-d blowing! Actually, I really am not a fan of working in the mine. Good thing I am an English teaching assistant here instead of a coal miner. Anyway, we also went to this old huge silo that is now a museum. It has a GIANT MOON in it! Can you believe it? A GIANT MOON! It also has other not-so-giant representations of all of the other planets and some stars. It was truly a magical place. Good for meditation and such...but...inside that old silo. Finally we ended the tour with a middle-of-the-night freeze-your-butt-off tour of an old industrial park that they turned into a museum. We got torches to talk through the park with and felt like we were back in the olden days. They make the old storage house into a restaurant. It was well made risotto, although, in typical German tradition, next to tasteless. You may have to wade through a bunch of sarcasm to see it, but I did enjoy my time in Duesseldorf. The Americans there (let's say...MOST of the Americans) there were super nice and just plain brilliant. I am so impressed us! I also had an opportunity to meet some other international language teaching assistants there, too. My roommates were Italians. So nice, so smart. And we got to speak German cause neither of us could speak our respective languages, how foreign.
And I was also able to go up to Kiel to see Jane...my sister's good friend from South Carolina. She and her husband live up there in a beautiful apparment with furniture that has arms and is more than 1 foot off the ground; and food that has flavor. It was a great time to just chill with friends while in Europe. We hopped over to Hamburg for the day and I saw the most beautiful church of my life! St Michaels. Just great! There is a lot of English influence in that city, according to Jane. And I noticed it right away. The shopping streets were bright with lots of lights and beautiful store displays. Everyone was setting up for the Christmas markets. Boy am I going to have a good time with those soon!
And finally in school, we have just started the American Dream unit. The students are learning all about how bad it is to live in America...jk. But I was (and still am) experiencing a lot of resistance from teachers and students, as well as others around in my daily life--a lot of people have a LOT of NEGATIVE things to say about the US. But so far I have been very impressed with this American Dream unit. Now of course, the expected "everyone in America has a gun and shoots their neighbors" argument is still very strong. And the teachers are very eager to point out that the death penality is barbaric but legal in the US, but in general this has been a unit that I have been glad to observe and take part in.
So all in all nothing too crazy happening right now. My big project this week is pumkpin pies for my classes on Thursday...made in a spring form pan. Oh yeah, did you know!?!? They don't have PIES at ALL here? Wow what a disappointment. (Although their cakes make up for it, in some ways.) Anyway, maybe I'll take a picture of what will surely be a strange pie to show you. And this weekend a bunch of Ami's are getting together to celebrate Thanksgiving. We are all meeting up at a friends house about an hour away. Some people are even traveling 3 hours to meet up! Boy am I thankful for my friends!
Happy Turkey Day to all!

Vocab:
Turkey: der Truthahn
Feast: das Fest
Family: die Familie
Friendship: die Freundschaft

Fire...Freiburg...Fahrvergnügen

Oh wow! So I guess Murphy's Law is legit--all that talk about ICEs in the last post got me in trouble...on my way to Freiburg, sitting happily in my seat watching Arrested Development, the train came to a sudden halt! The passengers were not phased, but the attendants went running left and right up and down the aisles...I was the only one who was the least bit disturbed. Not sure if that is the American in me or the Scorpio in me. Anyway, it was a true test in patience and trust in the Deutsche Bahn. We ended up waiting for two hours in the train without lights (but with Becks) and eventually had to switch to a new train. The engine had caught on fire!! But leave it to the Germans to act rationally and with little emotion (compare that to my normal reaction in such situations...). We were all safe...but it would not be a lie to say that I was freaked OUT.
Anyway, I finally got there and was able to have one more fun weekend with Erica before she finished up her time in Germany. It was just great! A college city is a college city anywhere, I think. The people were young, excited, accepting, and fun-loving. The main city was pretty small, but it was packed with tons of different types of places to eat and good shops. What I truly loved about this city was its diversity...well as diverse as you get in this country. We ate at Onkel Woks, an AMAZING Chinese place. We also had crepes, Mexican, and typical German. Now don't worry, eating is not the ONLY thing I'm doing here. We went for a trying hike up the hill into the depths of the Black Forest. A beautiful view of an incredible city. Another thing that I loved about that city was the monuments they had for the Jews who had been removed from the city and eventually executed. They were small plaques on the sidewalks outside of their residences. Very plain, very factual. They need not be too fancy, because just the thought of the people who were removed from the city stirs up so many complex emotions that the simplicity of the monument is appreciated.
I also got to meet up with an old friend from high school there. A real German! He was a sight for sore eyes. Konstantin lived in Charlotte junior year, and has been floating around in my life ever since. We have both grown up a lot, and I can not be happier to know that he is close by. I feel like a true world traveler to have friends in Germany.
Other than my trip to Freiburg, I have a bunch of little travels scattered in my time here before I head home for Christmas. I am always eager to get out of Dinslaken. As you probably grasped from my previous post, I am not too keen on riding my bike through the rain, cold, and gray to get out into the world. If I am going to do that stuff, it is nice to have a more exotic destination than school or the grocery store. But my every day life is not too dull these days, either. I usually only work a few hours a day. The rest of my time is spent riding my bike (do you notice a theme here...?), working out, eating, eating chocolate (an important distinction there!) and on the internet. It gets dark around 4.30 nowadays. So once I get settled in here on my red couch, I am reluctant to move.
It is difficult to get out and see people in the afternoons, but we Fulbright girls certainly make an attempt to do it. I have friends within 30 min to 2 hours on the trains...but after getting out of work at 2 and needing to be home for school the next day, it is not always possible.
I also have plans to host a movie club for the students at the the school. I am hoping that by showing them less-known movies and discussing them afterward outside of the classroom atmosphere, we will be able to talk about real issues in the US, rather than the sometimes contrived issues that are discussed in the English classes. But, unfortunately, the time I spend with the kids there counts towards my maximum of 12 hours a week in the classroom. So I still have the plethora of free time during the week.
So daily life is pretty...ordinary. It is not very German (except for the eating chocolate part), but nor is it very American. It is very Sadieingermanymakingherway. I have just recently been able to find some sort of nook in this crazy life. I really wish I had had a better understanding and better preparation for the way things work with the school, with Fulbright, and with Germany in general. But now that I am figuring things out, I am able to appreciate things a little more. For example, I really like the bread here. And I think its really fun to return plastic bottles for refunds (America, let's do this, too!). I think appreciation of bigger things, such as the school system, will come with time.


Now some belated vocab words!
Panic: die Panik
Burning: brennend
Candy: Suessigkeit
The Pleasure of Driving: Fahrvergnuegen

PS: Fahrvergnuegen doesn't really fit in this title. But I just realized that it is, in fact, a real word! How exciting!!

Travels in the Soutwest

Its been a long time! There's been lots of German and Inner-drama going on over here to keep me away from this ole blog. I think I last left you in the German Gymnasium, with moody teenagers and students antsy to get out for their Fall break. I too was ready to get out of Dodge--to dip my toes in the water of the romantic travels through Europe.
It started early early Friday morning with my first ICE train ride to Koblenz (ICEs RULE). Of course, I got the days wrong and so I had an entire day in Koblenz before my sister joined me there. The city is quaint, much like you would expect a small northeastern tourist town in the US. Except 2000 years old! Almost everything there was destroyed during the war (as it is in much of Germany) so there were a lot of bulidings rebulit to look like they once did. Restaurants dotted the map and kept tourists fed and happ. All of the pictures are in my Picasa (whether I can figure out how to link that is another matter). Friday night was quiet but necessary--its hard to hear yourself think in between school, living with a foreign family, and living in a foreign land in general. I had no idea how much I needed a break from everything. Lindsay arrived with bells on on Saturday, ready to take on Germany...right after a nap. It is so difficult to travel to Germany from the US--jetlag is KILLER! We did a lot of walking around in this city on the Rhine. There were plenty of English speakers and lots of patient people. We managed to find our way to a fortress, the Rhine and the Mosel rivers, a winery, and lots of ice cream and coffee shops.
Our American friend who is living in Kiel joined us for a few days and we had a great time eating and walking around. Its amazing how important is to take the time to sit and eat. We generally found Italian food to be the safest; in these resteraunts it was easiest to avoid pork. (I am having a serious pork overload.) There was no rush and no worries. We were able to enjoy each other's company, despite everyone being tired and sharing the dorm-like hotel room of the Scholz Hotel. (PS: If you care to hear more about the Scholz hotel, especially the generous hostess, please ask...Lindsay and I have some GREAT stories!)
We were also able to drive over to Bonn and see Beethoveen's birth house. It was great to think about new things, and to place the artist who played such an important role in my childhood and in my siblings' childhood in Germany. It always makes you feel a little more at home to make connections like that. Jane left, and Lindsay and I spent one last day in cold cold Koblenz, riding a bus (my first in Germany!) over to the fortress. It was surreal to leave her. Seeing family was like a dream from which I wasn't too keen to wake up.
Luckily I hopped on a train right away towards Frankfurt to meet Merianna, my bff (Best Fulbright Friend--one of them). WOW! Boy am I an American! Most Germans hate Frankfurt's skyline because of its skyscrapers and newness. I loved it! But we only just had a look as we hopped over to Koenberg...but then found out that we had the wrong city...so we hopped back to Frankfurt and then over to Wiesbaden. I only point this out because I want to emphasize how easy it was to get around. We had nowhere to be, no deadlines, and plenty of times to make mistakes. It was actually fun. It is such a different feeling to have time to make mistakes like that. And to enjoy the time on the trains between the random cities that we might happen upon.
We finally made it to Wiesbaden where we met about a million Americans. Not really, but the city is connected to a military base and also lots of international business. I had a GREAT time among all of the America-ness. Once again, not a favorite of Germans, and, in fact, Rick Steves thought it wasn't even worth visiting! Merianna and I had a great time just taking everything. We met her family friend in Frankfurt for an amazing, personalized tour of Frankfurt with food treats included. WOW! And, the cherry on this sundae, was the American brunch we treated ourselves to on our last morning together. We found a super cheesy American bar and loaded up on pancakes, omlettes, and bread. What a crazy treat! (Im sure some of you are thinking that Rick Steves was probably right about Wiesbaden, if there is an American-themed bar there...)
Anyway, the last leg of the trip I had two nights alone in Wiesbaden of much needed quiet, bread eating, and meditation. I made it down to see Erica in Stuehlingen. Very close to the Swiss boarder, very very far away from any sort of city life! It was amazing to see a sorority sister whom I could talk to about all of this stuff without even having to say anything. I can not emphasize enough how important it is to have friends to do nothing with.
It is so easy to leave homesickness, constant feelings of strangeness, and frustrations with the school and my job behind when traveling. I loved the feeling on the ICEs! Those trains were so clean, quiet, and fast! Sometimes I think if I could just ride the trains all around Germany and rely on such a punctual system, things would be so much easier than having to get on my bike and pedal through my life in Germany. So many times I have to pedal as fast as I can to make it on time (as opposed to the easier option of pressing on the gas in the States) and it becomes exhausting only to rush to places that are foreign and stressful.
But trains are not always on time, and actually the one to see Erica was swimming in coffee from a tragic accident with the coffee cart. So there is always a give and take. But I can't wait to take more train rides, to go through the countryside and see the world. It is by far the most fulfilling thing I've experienced so far--to sucessfully get to a destination, and be confident in my ability to lose and find myself over and over again.