First, to all of you who ever wondered how to say “Milk” in German, it’s “Milch”. And it’s pronounced practically the same exact way.
To be clear: “milk” is NOT “Lebnigsezten”.
But thanks for the hysterical bout of laughter Sara. Best Thursday EVER.
Second, wishing you a very Happy Birthday Grandpop! Hope you enjoyed buckets of Rum Raisin ice cream. And maybe some Roadrunner Rasberry. Or Key lime Pie. Or Pumpkin Pie. Or…
Oh. Sorry. Side tracked again.
But not really. Remember how I mentioned there’s such a thing as Hazelnut ice cream in Germany? Turns out there’s Hazelnut yogurt too. I got ridiculously excited when I found some in the fridge after Gym on Friday.
Yes. Yogurt. Gym class consumed my supply of spare chill pills, thus there were none left to take the edge off of my latest discovery.
Btdubs: gym class was actually a soccer gym class. Yes. I thought that might explain the need for so many chill pills (chill pill=metaphor for chilling out a bit, fyi…)
On Fridays, I normally just go home, start my blog, and chill a bit. But this week, out of curiosity, I went to a soccer gym class instead.
So. Much. Fun. We did some running, a short soccer drill or two, a game similar to “Fishy Fishy cross the sea” but not really, and after that, we just played.
And played and played and played and played.
I was a forward/midfielder rather than goalkeeper (my usual position). Several good reasons for this:
One, we had a game on Saturday and I didn’t want to get injured beforehand.
Two, it’s nice to play the field on occasion.
Three, there were a bunch of very tall German men in the class, and I really didn’t feel like losing any teeth.
How cowardly of me.
Anyway, my real point here is that the Hazelnut yogurt was a welcome reprieve from the language battle that was taking place in my brain. See, the thing is, I’ve been playing soccer for 15 years, and for most of that time, I’ve been very vocal on the field. Always shouting and directing and calling the wrong brown-haired ponytail by the wrong name. It’s never really mattered to me if it was a pick-up game at recess, gym class, practice, a game on TV, etc. When it comes to soccer, I am just obnoxiously loud.
And 15 years of English obnoxiousness does not just magically disappear.
Show of hands, how many of you are familiar with the term “muscle memory”? How many of you actually raised your hands even though you’re reading from a computer screen?
If you raised your hand, you’ve proved my point. Muscle memory is almost exactly what it sounds like: your muscles remember how to do things. Or rather, by repeating the motion a whole heck of a lot, your brain forms “neural pathways” or something, which makes the motion more an instinctual reaction, rather than a movement you
have to think about.
have to think about.
I did a bit of research here, and it turns out that the voice is also a muscle. You use certain muscles to operate your voice, move your lips, and your jaw. Thus the whole muscle memory idea can also be applied to speaking.
Well, that’s my theory at least. If you think I had it bad with Physics, you
don’t even want to touch the topic of Biology class…
don’t even want to touch the topic of Biology class…
Back to my point though: 15 years of training has cemented in me the instinct to shout and react in English. That’s 15 years of muscle memory to overcome. It’s a wonder my brain doesn’t have… a brain attack?... after each time I play a round of soccer here. I just get so freaking confused in the language sector afterwards. My head was so twisted up yesterday that I couldn't ask, in English or German, "are you biking home now? Or do you still have classes"? I ended up saying the following sentence, word for word:
“You. Home. With bike. Now”?
Yes. I sounded like I was an early student of English rather than a somewhat advanced student of German. Oh the trials of language immersion.
And the joy and hilarity too.
Sorry, another side note: If this post seems more random and jumpy than usual, it’s because I’ve got my windows thrown wide open to let in the Summer atmosphere. Clear blue skies, the warm glint of the sun, gentle breeze, and absolutely no snow.
To those of you in the Northeast, all I can say is: HA!
But, to give you a bit of ammunition against me, they have a saying about April here: “April, April er macht, was er will”.
Which translates to: “April, April, he does what he wants”.
It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that April may invite Jack Frost back for a visit.
And now back to soccer: I mentioned earlier that we had game yesterday: we won!!! And while winning is always a very enjoyable achievmement, it was a 3-0 victory against a rivalry team.
Oh it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, but not so much for the neighbor, cause we beat ‘em into the dust, Tra lala lala la…
I am a totally different person when it comes to soccer. I must apologize. There really is just no excuse for me.
OK, I’m done with the whole soccer bit (for now) so for those of you non-sports fans can zone back in now if you like.
School this week was pretty cool. We worked some more with poems in German, comparing “Spinnerin Nachtlied” to one of the poems we had read earlier. I also found out that we’ll be starting a book this week: “Lieutenant Gustl” but Arthur Schnitzler.
I’m just as eager to see how this pans out as you are.
Then, in History, we talked about another one of my favorite people: Machiavelli!!! My teacher went on a whole tirade about how to pronounce his name and how Italian pronunciation rules work and, huh.
It was pretty awesome.
On Tuesday I had my first legit FREE period in a very long time, so some friends and I went to Woyton. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but Woyton is basically the German equivalent of Starbucks. Where I live in the US, if you’re going to go out and meet with someone over a cup of coffee, you’ll usually do so at Starbucks, or someplace that offers Starbucks. Here? You’d probably go to a Woyton.
After Tuesday’s free period, I had math. Luckily there was only one math class this week. Sadly, I doodled through a lot of it. Sorry! I had a clue what was going on two weeks ago or so, but I haven’t had time to look up an English version of the stuff, thus I am once again lost. OK. Next chapter please?
As for the other Math class, it got cancled because all 11th graders taking Bio had to attend an assembly.
A very, very, dry and very, very, boring assembly from what I’ve heard. The kids that were originally glad to skip their normal class suddenly found themselves reappraising that opinion...
I have never heard so many poor people wishing they were in Economics class instead.
In defense of the assembly, I wasn’t actually there seeing as I don’t have bio, so all the info I have relayed about said assembly comes from second hand accounts. However, of the all second hand accounts I received, maybe half of one was positive:
“Well, it ended. So that was good”.
In Physics on Wednesday… I’m not really certain what we did. But on Friday we talked about light and I answered a question.
Correctly.
In front of the whole class.
And I said it all in German. Though admittedly, the entire response was only one word:
“Ja”.
This is definitely progress.
In my seventh grade German class on Wednesday, my student-teacher had her Final exam, which I think went really really well. We worked with a poem called “John Maynard” and, although I understood the words themselves, I really don’t understand the poem as a whole. I am now at the point where I can have a half coherent conversation, but I still can’t understand a seventh grade level poem. Alright then. Thursday’s English class was probably the most interesting class of the week. In it, we read a beautiful speech by the Australian Prime Minister, delivered in 2008.
It was an apology to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. It was sincere, it was heartfelt, and it was very, very powerful. Watch the speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XtUJTbQaN0
It’s a series of 3 videos, each approximately 10 minutes, so if you’d prefer to read the speech (understandable) then you can do so here: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/13/1202760379056.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
I always enjoy English class here because, even though it’s my native language, and thus the work is relatively easy for me, there really is always something entirely new to learn; some entirely new perspective or idea to explore and understand. Take, for instance, the idea of an apology for both Slavery and what we did to the Native Americans. Now, after some research, it turns out that we did apologize for slavery and for our actions against the Native Americans. These apologies were, however, rather limited. They state merely that we realize we were wrong, but do not take any steps towards fixing the issues that remain. For example, there are still several rather large issues that remain unresolved between our nation and the Native American nations, which, for those of you who do not know, are indeed their own nations.
When you apologize for something, you’re not supposed to qualify the statement. If you do, well… it’s no longer really an apology, is it? I dunno. Perhaps I’m just reading too much into this. I was up until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning the past few nights, and sleep deprivation does tend to cloud your vision a bit.
That was pretty much it for school. I did, however, learn a lot about German music in the past week or two. First, an a cappella group called “The Wise Guys”. VERY COOL. I especially enjoy the song “Willst du mit mir gehen?”. I don’t understand the whole thing, but the essential points are that it’s a guy using some (cheesy?) pickup lines to attract someone. However, the last bit of the song is “I am so cool. Will you go out with me”. So really, the song is just about him thinking he’s cool, but not really.
One of the pickup lines is “I’ve forgotten my phone number. Can I borrow yours?”
Both of them are really good. Haven’t had time to look at other songs by these artists though, let you know what I find next week.
Last but not least: I was at a friend’s house yesterday, and someone mentioned Pachabel.
Fellow AP Euro students, even if you have retained none of the legit history, you should ALL know what’s coming here…
Pachabel’s Rant.
Yes: I introduced them to “Pachabel’s Rant”, which is basically pure awesomeness turned into a song about a composer who was horribly mean to Cellists.
I was first made aware of this masterpiece in my Junior year AP Euro class. Our teacher sent it to us the night before the test to ensure that we didn’t study to hard…
It worked.
So… yups. That’s it for the past week. On the agenda for this coming week? Some of the kids in the 11th grade leave for a three week stint in the US. I wish them the best of luck, and I know they’ll have a blast!!!
Over and out,
Shannon
PS: I added the new gadget that lets you follow the blog via email. You don't have to keep checking back to see if I've posted something new, you'll just get an email and POOF: there's The Blog.
PS: I added the new gadget that lets you follow the blog via email. You don't have to keep checking back to see if I've posted something new, you'll just get an email and POOF: there's The Blog.
