When crawling under a rock isn't an acceptable solution....

To start with:  Thank you Senor Padilla!

Yes.  I am talking about my Spanish 1 teacher.  In my blog about my stay in Germany.

“WHAT?!!  There MUST be an explanation for this!” you say?  Take a chill pill.  For once, there is a method to my madness.

Senor Padilla is the one who gave me what has turned out to be some of the best advice I have ever received:

“When you learn a foreign language, you have to be prepared to stick your foot, in your mouth. 

--Deep breathe--

“A lot.”

It was his advice that has gotten me through the week.  In the week of the Whirlwind, much as I listened and studied all the German that was around me, I didn’t really speak that much outside of the house. 

This week, I grew a spine and did speak outside the house, and tried to expand the boundaries of what I already know.  But what I said?  Well, let’s just say it wasn’t always what I meant….

Earlier this week, I tried to say “I am going to take my dry laundry, and put it away”.  What I really said?

“I am going to dry my laundry and put it away”.  In English?  Perfectly fine.  In German?  Not so much.  This came across as:

“Shannon is going to whirl her laundry around by hand until it is dry.  After she is done ignoring the dryer down the hall, she will put her laundry in her room”.

Although she knew what I meant, Holy MOLY did this make my host mom laugh!!  At first, she just smiled, held back a chuckle, and said “that’s fine, you go right ahead”.  After some prodding-- I had OBVIOUSLY said something funny and, really? I doubt that laundry is that funny in any language-- she told me what I had done wrong.

Apparently, a dropped verb here and there is a big deal… who knew?

As for school, I learned a very important word this week:

“Ausfallen” as in “alles faellt aus”.

FIVE of my classes this week were canceled.  FIVE.  Apparently, there’s a bug going around and we don’t get substitute teachers when the permanent ones get sick (tough luck Gleeks.  I know.  I miss Gwyneth too).

On Wedenesday I was supposed to have Physics, Politiks, and Theater.  I had Theater. 

Alright alright, only two classes.  That’s not so bad.

On Thursday this week, I was supposed to have English, Math, German, and Art.

Yeah.  I had Math.  Then I went into the city with a girl from my Physics and Politics class, and had coffee with her and a bunch of her friends.  I still didn’t say much, but said enough to look silly.  Or maybe they thought I was being anti-social?? I’m not really sure.  The whole “first impression” bit didn’t go very well…

Luckily, one of the girls there had studied English abroad last year, and totally got why I wasn’t saying… well, anything really.  She told us a story about a word that exists in German, but not at all in English and how, when she tried to use the word in English, it led to hilarity between her and her friends.  I won’t repeat the story word for word as it is not really my story to tell.  Suffice it to say, that it was nice someone understood the reason for my silence.

As far as my actual classes go, I no longer feel like an English word being beaten up by German words in a crossword puzzle; I am now able to consistently distinguish one word from another when people are speaking.  To rephrase: German no longer sounds like onebiglongword unless it is onebiglongword. 

On the non-language side of things, I have proved once and for all that I definitely have the Kehoe sense of direction.

IE: None. 

The school I attend here is literally ¼ the size of the one at home, but I keep getting lost!  It doesn’t help matters that some classes get canceled, while others just get moved, and I have no idea how to read (or say) the “Vertraetungsplan”, which states what class is where. 

As such, I was super late to German on Monday.  And Volleyball on Tuesday. 

And Theater on Wednesday. 

After that, I decided it was best to find someone in my class before my class actually started.... 

On the less embarrassing side of life, I’ve got some exciting news: someone is coming to visit soon!!  The less exciting news?  He’s dead. 

It’s Juan de Pareja, the man on the cover of my AP Euro book.  The reason he’s coming?

Well, McKay is coming.  Poor guy doesn’t really have a choice.

For those of you who don’t know, “McKay” is the nickname Pennsbury students give to their AP Euro textbook.  Yes.  We love him so much he is treated like part of the family.

Well, except for the whole highlighting bit.

Like I said last week, I’m taking AP Euro again here in Germany, and it’s been proven that you re-learn faster from materials that you have already referenced, than from materials you are reading for the first time.

I’ve already read McKay twice.  I think I should relearn what little I have forgotten fairly quickly, don’t you??

Now to the culture bit (I know, great transition there).

It may surprise some of you to know that, in Germany, the big meal of the day is lunch, not breakfast or dinner.  Other than the two days that I have afternoon classes, I eat lunch with my host mom and my host brother every day, and my host mom cooks something up for lunch just like my mom in the US would do for dinner. 

Come to think of it, my host family and I have sat down to eat just about every meal together.  Every meal.  I know that, for me, it was a little surprising when I realized that.  In the US, we’re always running around; my family considers the week a success when we eat 2 meals together; between homework, work, extra curriculars, and exhaustion, there’s just not enough time for a sit-down dinner. 

To be clear, I’m not trying to say that this is good, or bad, or anything at all really.  I’m merely trying to point out some differences between German and American culture that I find interesting.

Lastly, social stuff:  Last weekend I met up with a friend I had hosted in the US for a three week exchange, and she, I, and a few other friends (some from the same exchange, and some I had never met before) went to the supermarket and bought some food to cook in a Wok.

Wok=Stir Fry.  I think.  

Anyway, I’d never cooked with a Wok before, but I had a ton of fun trying it for the first time.  We spoke some English, but mostly German (hahaha!  Success! Sort of.)  I understood EVERYTHING in the Supermarket.  I’m not talking just basic points, I mean EVERYTHING.  As in EVERY WORD. 

It. Was. AWESOME.

Then we went to my friend’s house and chopped and stirred and cooked in the kitchen.  

I understood most of what was said there, and the few things I didn’t were rephrased once or twice until I did.

We ate some DELISCIOUS vegetables and noodles with a super-yummy sauce, and then we chilled in the basement and ate desert. 

Huh.  That’s where I got lost. This was no longer “let’s speak a tad slower than usual so Shannon can understand”.  This was no longer “eh, Shannon seems to be getting everything, let’s try normal speed”.  This was GIRL TALK.  For those of you who don’t know, this means SUPERSONIC speed. 

Yeah.  I got nothin’.

I still had an absolute blast, and the others were really good about gauging how confused I was (my face was the confuse-a-dometer).  When the gauge got too strained, they stopped, explained in English, we laughed, and continued on.

I repeat: It was a BLAST!  And those carrots were definitely worth all the effort it took to chop them.

The Weekend Forecast:  EWE Baskets basketball game on Saturday, and Soccer on Sunday.

The Basketball team here is a HUGE deal.  No, like it’s a reallybigfreakingdeal.  EVERYONE who can get a ticket goes to see these games.  From what I’ve seen, Oldenburg loves the Baskets like Philly loves the Eagles.

But Oldenburgers are much more well behaved. 

I think.

Last thing, I’ve started making flashcards on Quizlet of all the words I’m learning.  Check ‘em out here:

http://quizlet.com/user/fusion/

You made need to get an account to view them.  Don’t worry.  It’s free.

Well, that’s really it for now.  I’ll give you another update next weekend.

Over and out,

Shannon

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