Thursday, March 08, 2007

Cloven in Twain (?)

Cloven in Twain. It is a comment that I can’t help laughing about when I think about it. Apparently it was something a fellow trainee in the Netherlands thought up while working mindlessly. It’s funny to me mostly because I think of it, then think of Eric thinking it up and deciding it was the best thing ever. It just always make me laugh. Well it and Gary’s comment about sucking youth, but that is another story entirely.
Other random thoughts include that the reading of Harry Potter books lately has encouraged my thoughts to think of any kind of mischief as ‚breaking about 50 school rules.’ Any rule breaking and I want to say to myself, ‚Now, I know I’m breaking about 50 school rules, but it’s just this once.’ For example, I am currently eating a Cup of Noodles (I’m feeling lazy, but I’ll get to that) in the presence of a computer, and in a room designated as a Büro, which is to say, Germanically speaking, an Office. I know, I’m breaking about 50 school rules. Sorry.
Yesterday I decided not to drink coffee. I did this somewhat because of my fear that I am addicted to it, but mostly because I was bored between classes and challenged myself to not drink it. Not one to back down from a challenge, I didn’t drink coffee. I thought it would be a good day to test Katie’s ‚an apple wakes you up just as much as drinking coffee does’ theory. In my case it wasn’t true. Perhaps because I am addicted to coffee. I passed through the day grumpy mostly because I couldn’t drink coffee. ‚It’s not becuase you need to drink coffee,’ I told myself ‚it’s because you want to drink coffee and you can’t.’ It made me think about the logic of addiction. Maybe you never feel like you have to do something, you just feel like you really want to, and why shouldn’t you.
Today I drank coffee, though I did want to also eat an apple. I blame English lessons. In the sixth class we are talking about Modal Verbs, which are the verbs Must’t and Shouldn’t. I never really use the word Mustn’t, mostly because I never really use the word Must. Does anyone? Apparently, to talk about Modal Verbs, we are talking about eating healthily. We took a little health quiz on Wednesday and my score looked bleak. And I will tell you, one of the questions had everything to do with Apples. As if apples are this magical life saving fruit. Don’t they know that people that draw pictures about the Bible draw apples as the forbidden fruit. They even come right out and say you shouldn’t just eat apples, Terry (Terry, you will remember, is a child at Thomas Tallis, a fictional or atcual school in London, but you mustn’t remember, I reminded you.) But then in this quiz one of the questions is how many apples did you eat last week. It did not like my answer of 0 apples. They didn’t ask how many times I rode my bike last week, which was 7, at least. I think that’s pretty dang healthy.
I’ve aquired a new favorite German word. Quatsch. If you look it up, it can mean bullcrap. It can, however, also mean ‚Shut up’ ‚Give me a break’ ‚You’re an idiot’ or ‚Pssh.’ It is also fun to say. You pronounce it qwatch, only with a little hint of ‚s’ before the ‚ch.’ Try it out, just walk around saying it. You’ll like it, it’ll grow on you, it took me a couple of days. Also in the realm of German nonsense words that might be useful, only a dustier word, is ‚Potztausend.’ One uses it when one is surprised by something, and when one is a old person. I don’t think the kids use it, but it is in my book, so I asked someone what it meant. Words like that are the fun part about learning German. The hard part is when I don’t drink coffee one day and my brain starts moving all slow and I get this headache but still have to think about what people are saying becuase it is German and if I don’t think to pay attention I won’t translate what they say, and then will be confused. Potztausend’s closest English relative I think would be ‚Poppycock.’
Today I taught the 1st class. I like them because they are like tiny people and sometimes it makes me smile to see them doing big people things. They are fun and like me and get excited when I come to teach them. Today didn’t go over amazingly because I tried teaching ‚I’m A Little Teapot.’ I should’ve learned the German word for teapot, and meant to, but forget. No one knew it, and the teacher had a time thinking of the word. The problem is that in Europe they drink so much tea they all have water cookers, which boil water ganz fast. So no one really has a teapot, anymore. So the song was hard to translate into German because no one understood why a teapot would whistle. Last week ‚The Itsy Bitsy Spider’ went so well, I thought it would be the same. Of course, it’s hit and miss with the first class. At least we will sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider onward into infinity. That is at least something. (They also know what happens in the song, so woohoo.)
Anyway, my cup of noodles are (is?) getting cold and my (our) friend Walde is here and wants help with Math(s) and English. So I must go now, mustn’t I?

1 Comments:

At 6:10 AM GMT+1, Blogger Maria said...

I have a new blog now! Check it out. And I did read yours, but am too tired to come up with clever comments. Good job on being so smart (referring to the blog below this one)

 

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