The Whirlwind

For those of you who are not familiar with the German school system, I shall quickly sum it up.  The rest of you, feel free to skip ahead. 

There are four different types of German high schools.  The first is the Gymnasium, essentially the AP level of things.  Then there’s the Realschule; honors level.  Then the Hauptschule; parallel or Tech school.  Lastly, there’s the “Gesamtschule” which is a combination of all three schools, and not very common.  I attend the Gymnasium, where those in the 12^th and 13^th grades are now frantically preparing for their Abbitur. 

This would a Heart of Darkness “The Horror!  The Horror!” moment.

The closest thing we have to an Abbitur is an AP Exam, and even those are no true comparison.  The most I will say is that the Abbitur is very, very difficult and very, very stressful.  It is essentially an exit exam from the High School, and only given at the Gymnasium.  The Abbitur decides your future; it decides if you have a future.  Your grade on it will determine what fields you can pursue in college, and what colleges will even look at your application. 

Yeah, not exactly singing cherubs and stuff. 

 As far as the school schedule goes, it changes from day to day.  For example, my schedule:

Monday: two free periods, then double German and double English.

Tuesday: Double history, double Volleyball, double Math (yuck) and an after school club called UNESCO.

Wednesday: Double Physics, Double Politics, two free periods and forty five minutes for lunch, then double Theater. 

Thursday: Double English, double Math (yuck again), double German, and double Art.  Yes, Art.  Comments devoid of handwriting jokes are much appreciated.

Friday: Two free periods, double Physics, and double History.

In every class we have a five minute break (approximately), and between every class we have a “Grosse Pause”—a 20 minute break. 

My first class here was on Wednesday in Physics.  Holy.  Moly.

The first day there, I was able to understand the majority of what my teacher (very cool guy, by the way) was saying, but I didn’t understand the actual physics that he was talking about.  After acquiring my textbook and trading some emails with my physics teacher from last semester, I know why:

It looks like I’m taking something akin to AP Physics B.  Not honors physics, not AP Physics, but AP Physics B.

Uh, I took parallel last semester….. 

That’s deserving of a “Holy Moly”, don’t you think?

Nah, in actuality is not as intimidating as it seems.  My grades here don’t count seeing as the major focus is on learning German language and culture, so a whole bunch of stress gets taken away there.  I had my second physics class on Friday, and that went a thousand times better than the one on Wednesday, and Wednesday I didn’t think was all that bad.  My guess is that in two, two and a half weeks, I ought to have a decent handle on what’s going on. 

OK, so maybe that’s a bit optimistic, but better that than pessimistic, eh?

After Physics I had Politiks.

Yeah.  I had no idea what was going on.  Something about a man being killed over Pizza.

Thursday I was supposed to start with English, but I ended up having one period free because our teacher was helping with some Abbitur practice exams.  I went to work in the “Arbeitsraum”, and was soon joined by a handful of other kids.  One of them was a girl I was supposed to host last year, but was unable to come because she got sick.  After chatting a bit, Isabel and I discovered that we have English, History, and Math together. 

Thank goodness!  She took me under her wing and helped me out enormously in Math, where I had no idea what was going on (working with probability, hence all the “yucks”), and guided me through History as well.   I may not enjoy the Math, but my teacher is very nice.  It’s just, I didn’t really get the whole probability thing in English, so the chances of me understanding it in German are fairly dismal. 

Moving on, it looks like Mrs. Swope was right again.  AP Euro is EVERYWHERE.  I mean, I’m in Germany, so I anticipated encountering a bit of Euro info, just not, you know, the whole class.  On Friday, we started off my history class by talking about Locke, Rousseau, and Montesque and continued into the Wright brothers, the Preamble from the Constitution (our constitution), the Printing Press, Columbus, and Luther.  For about 15 minutes or so, my teacher kept talking about “Loodah”.  I had been doing fairly well up until then, but at “Loodah” I got lost.  Once again, Isabel came to the rescue and we figured out that “Loodah” was “Luther”.  I was got caught by the accent was all. 

Those are the major points from the last few days.  Overall, I’ve been surprised by how much German I’ve been able to understand, even more by what I’ve been able to figure out by making a few educated guesses.  I may not be speaking noticeably better yet, but I have noticed that, just in the six days I’ve been here— communicating almost exclusively in German—I can comprehend so much more than I could a week ago; indeed, than I could three days ago. 

That being said, I still have a looooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go.  But in every class there has been at least one person willing to help me out (usually more), and take the time to explain everything to me—auf Deutsch—with words that I can understand.  Not an easy task, I assure you.  My experience in Math class has, so far, been the most extreme example, but there were similar instances in Physics, Politics, and German as well. 

At times it’s hard to speak in German simply because there are so many people trying to speak to me in English, and it’s hard for me to switch back and forth between the two languages.  Once I’ve made it clear that I really am here to learn German though, people are quite willing to oblige me and help me along.  Since most people here do speak at least some English, they know a bit of what I am trying to accomplish.

Last thing:  I haven’t been keeping up with my correspondences and individual emails as much people might like, but that’s not because I’m trying to ignore anyone!!  It’s just that, right now, it’s hard for me to switch back and forth between English and German, so I try to save all my English correspondence for the weekend, and write little notes to people who need answers ASAP during the week.  Once I can speak German more cohesively—that is, more than fifth or sixth grade sentences—I should be a bit better at switching around.  On the other hand though, I’m not in Germany to write emails to all the people back in the US.  I am coming to learn that balancing my obligations on both sides of the pond will be a bit challenging, so I must beg forgiveness if I seem to slack at times.

There's a ton more that I want to say, but that'll have to wait for next weekend. 
Over and out,
Shannon