In Deutschland: Warum Nicht?

2007-07-31T17:06:00.000+02:00

Life, it seems, is poetic. In tribute this will be a short post. Feeling very much like the subject of a year long poem, I find myself, on my very last night in Germany, feeling very much the same way I felt on my very first day in Germany: tired, confused and alone. My cohort Gary has driven already to Amsterdam, but I stayed behind to pack and say goodbye to one more family (who consequently are meeting me at 6:30 for a final get together). I have spent most of the day hastily packing and trying to convince myself that being lonely and sad aren’t bad things, and that they are simply a part of my experience here. I have to breath deep the air of Altes Lager one last time, and spend one final lonely night in my seemingly large apartment before I can fully say goodbye to my one year home. My thoughts rage from the children I taught and the teachers I worked with and, like waves, crush any stray happy thoughts, drowning out the sliver lining until I can fully appreciate it. It all reminds me of a life lesson I have picked up this year, sometimes people hold things back from us, not because they don’t wish to help us, but rather because they sense, somehow, that we are unready to truly enjoy that which they are holding back. Will I ever learn German? Perhaps not according to some standards, but for most of you, I already know German, 500 times better than you at the very least. That’s all I got. Tune in next adventure. Oh, and dear reader: Auf Wiedersehen.

2007-07-11T18:28:00.000+02:00

Mein Letzter Schultag

Today, was the worst day of my life in Germany. I’m not trying to be all dramatic and weird, but at the same time, I AM trying to be dramatic and weird. Now, just so you know, I have had many bad days, many days here that weren’t up to par, where I felt stupid and out of place, but today, today topped them all. It wasn’t bad because I did something embarrassing; I didn’t feel stupid or out of place, I just felt sad. Today was my last day of school; my last day of seeing any of the children I have often referred to as my kids. I’d like to iterate that this sadness was ‘the good kind of sadness,’ the kind where you enjoy something or someone so much that when you know they won’t be around, you feel sad. I never really saw the end coming, I just ignored it really, hoping time might stop. So today, the last day of school, crept up on me like a wild boar. I spent the day with the 5th class, because I had no lessons, the sixth class wasn’t around, and the 5th class are some of my best friends in Germany. In the third period they did Zeugnis hand outs. A Zeugnis is a report card. Then, at the end, they called me to the front of the class and the kids gave me cards they had made me, and of course shook my hands. I will disclaim this next part with the fact that I often guard my emotions and don’t cry often, but for whatever reason the official goodbye to these kids brought tears to my eyes. Okay, so that was a bit embarrassing because all the parents were there, but maybe they thought it was sweet that I cared. I think a lot of it was that I have spent the year telling myself that I am not much to these kids, something interesting ‘oh look, another American come to teach us English.’ I always kept the fear that I meant nothing to these kids, that I was just a temporary thing. For whatever reason, the cards made me think otherwise. As for the crying, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I cannot express how much the class meant to me in words. In German I tend to shy away from saying things that express affection, because I worry that if it is taken the wrong way I won’t be able to defend myself, or mostly I just worry that in German culture you just don’t say those things. Plus you can’t really tell 5th graders anything that serious. And by you there I mean me, because I tend to joke with the children more than anything else. Whatever the reason, I don’t regret doing it, so don’t even think about leaving ‘cry baby’ comments, because they won’t hurt my feelings at all. To quote a recent book I read: ‘You’re not really a man until you have truly loved a child, and you’re not a good man until that child loves you.’
Anyway, after my cry baby fest we went outside to the official school closing ceremony. There I felt like a star because as I was called to the front, all the kids stretched out their hands for a high five like I had just hit a homerun at the end of the World Series. It was a great feeling, but also sad as some of the kids realized I was leaving. One particular girl asked me to give her five about a million times, after each one looking sad and saying ‘noch mal.’ The teachers gave me a nice picture map book of Germany, and a Jüterbog DVD. It was very nice. After that it was a mass of goodbyes, and sad faces. I stayed positive; playing with the kids like it was just another day, until the buses came. I waved one final time and then went into the teacher’s lounge one last time. Finally I took a final whiff of good old Blönsdorf air and started saying goodbye to the teachers. It was also very sad to do. Like I said, today was my worst day ever in Germany, the day I realized I have to leave all the things that took so long to get used to.

2007-07-11T18:27:00.000+02:00

6th Class Graduation

Tonight was the 6th class graduation. Now for those of you who know nothing about German schools, you might be thinking something like ‘Oh man, another one of those,’ or ‘Honestly, who needs a graduation from 6th grade.’ Well let me lay something down for you. In Germany the 6th class graduation is important because, unlike in America, after the 6th class, the students choose their own paths, some go to Gymnasium, which is a pre University course, some choose Fachschule, which leads to some kind of vocational job, and others go to school in another city. Some of the kids, who grew up together, may never see each other again (okay that is a bit heavy on the drama, but I wasn’t sure how else to explain it really). The point is, it was a big deal, and pretty fun. The 5th class is responsible for a majority of it, and I helped them a little with some of the songs they chose to sing. At one point the sixth class kids started giving roses to the teachers. Being just a temporary teacher I expected to be left out of this ceremony. So, it was surprising when two of the sixth graders snuck up behind me to hand me a rose with a note on it. The note said: ‘Sometimes, I think about what you might say in my situation, with your dry humour, and I can’t help but smile and send you a winking mental greeting. I wonder if you got it?’ At first I considered that maybe it was a mistake and the flower was meant for another teacher, but the note seemed quite personal, and pretty fitting for me, as people have often commented that I have a dry sense of humour. It made me feel good because it was an example of the impact I had on these kids without realizing it, and it felt really good to know that people that I have grown to care about a lot also grew to care about me.

2007-07-03T22:05:00.000+02:00

I'll make a teacher of you yet, Finnagan!

Today I felt like a real teacher. Perhaps it is weird that it has taken pretty much an entire school year to feel that way, and though I would like to blame (I originally wrote it blaim, but I blame German spelling) my language comprehension skills, I think I should really just chalk it up to training. I was kind of thrown into this whole teaching gig after a lifetime of promising myself I would never be a teacher. My parents are both teachers, so as a child I spent a brief amount of time thinking teaching was the only real profession on the planet. I think it is easy enough to do that, especially as a child seeing as the most real things to you (or at least to me back then) are your parents, siblings, classmates and teacher. The point is when it got time to be rebellious, the first thing I thought to do was rebel against the teaching profession. It is a rebellion I have held on to, to this day, mostly because signs keep pointing me in that direction. I know, I should think of teaching as a noble profession, being one of the only jobs that involve dealing with homework again (not having homework is probably the greatest thing about being out of school), and one chooses to deal with this homework in order to stand in front of a group of children most of whom don’t really want to learn. It’s a bit of a harsh judgement on school children, but I am allowed to say it because I’m a teacher and I work with those school children (plus I know school is boring...), and we’re always harder on our jobs than our normal lives.
Anyways, back to the point. I felt like a real teacher because I was called into a conference with the principal. Being a seasoned professional student, I have a natural resistance to meetings, especially when they involve a principal. My first thought is always: okay, what have I done to deserve this, and how can I sneak out of it? Now being a teacher, of course, the meeting was about students, specifically an event that happened yesterday on the bus. Unfortunately, the students involved were among my biggest fans, children that normally defend my honour should any of the other children attempt to mock me in earnest. Ordinarily they give me a hard time, but that is the way friendship generally works. Somehow it got around that these kids make fun of me a lot, though conveniently left out was the fact that they were just messing around. The meeting was intended to clarify this, though it was mixed up because there were also other things involved. Plus I won’t pretend my German is perfect. Anyway, I tried to give the facts, letting go of friendship alliances I would hold if I were a student and not a teacher. The kids weren’t bothering me, but did give considerable grief to two other adults. I spent the rest of the day waiting for the hammer to fall, for the kids involved to be mad at me or no longer be my friends. Instead, a strange thing happened. I met with a teacher and one of the kids involved and though the child was upset, it was more sadness. As he explained what he was in trouble for, he fought back tears, but I began to realize that there was an error. Tomorrow I will have to attempt to get the problem corrected, probably setting back the teachers opinion of my German comprehension to caveman level, but I suppose that’s what a real friend would do in this situation.
In other news, my spider bite has worked itself out, as most things tend to do, so I will not be visiting the doctor quite yet. My fellow Altes Lager trainee, Gary, on the other hand will be going tommorow on my orders (is it just me or does tomorrow just seem wrong?). He came down with a sudden sore throat and fever. After discussing his symptoms on the way to the drug store, and a bit of thought I decided it was Strep. throat. (Last year I believe I correctly diagnosed this in Maria). A quick check of the internet confirmed my suspicions, so I suggested he visit the doctor, which I believe he will do tomorrow. (Still seems wrong, tomorrow I mean.) Going through that reminded me of my love of diagnosing people, and taking care of sick people, but I don’t think I have it in me to go through medical school.

Disclaimer: I have no idea who Finnagan is or why I must write Finnagan in italics, but it sounded very SNL Sean Connery on Jeopardy.

2007-07-03T21:58:00.000+02:00

Do Radioactive Spiders Live in Deutschland?

I have a spider bite. Coincidentally, it is in the same place as Peter Parker/Spiderman’s magical, radioactive spider bite. If you are one of those people who think only dorks or dweebs read comic books, then you are wrong. Nerds read them too. I would try to evade this moniker, though it is really pointless to do so. Too many things weigh in against me: When writing I often think about grammar rules, I majored in Biology, I applied to medical school, I work in an elementary school where I can daily live out my childhood dream of being popular in elementary school, my vocabulary is still quite strong despite living the past year in Germany, I think it is cool to study things and, though not technically nerdy, I have spent a year attempting to learn (really learn) a foreign language. In case you were wondering, I have never had braces or a retainer, nor do I have debilitating allergies. Okay, all that to make a small point about a spider bite. Let’s continue shall we, noch mal von Anfang?
I have a spider bite on my left hand, in the very same spot as Peter Parker/Spiderman got his legendary, radioactive spider bite. Unlike Spidey, instead of obtaining a set of new powers, all I have so far received is a hand debilitating and quite painful cramping sensation. Though this has dissipated, it was still a bit disheartening. This whole year of avoidance from a doctor’s office; through three colds and a cough almost lasted past my two week immune system challenge; only to be stopped short, at the wire, by something as ridiculous as an insect bite. I’m not living outdoors for goodness sake. If it is still swollen tomorrow I will have to cave in to the pressure.
In other news, we are officially finished with Adult English Classes, which is both a relief; the classes took a lot of difficult planning time, and sadness; those adults were our friends, dang it! (Further evidence of Nerdiness, the use of dang it as an imperative.) Some say that every ending is the prelude to a new beginning, but I guess something about the implicit obviousness of that statement unsettles me. Perhaps I am really bothered by that prospective new beginning; it is so glooming and unclear. There are many options, and despite my ‘I want to enjoy Germany while I am still here’ attitude, I am still troubled by what to do next year. I think the thoughts wander to consciousness to block out the thoughts of leaving soon. I have become attached to my small village in Germany, I have grown to enjoy the people here, and despite it being sometimes repressively boring, I enjoy the kids I work with enough to want to stay. Maybe it is just a sign that I am a good person, but it doesn’t make it easier to deal with.
On a less downward spiralling note, I have my final English lesson all planned out. Just with the thought of it, a literal wave of peace rolled through the depths of my character. Planning English lessons this year has been a thorn in my paw. I was constantly in between being too cautious and moving too quickly. I started off with high standards, only wishing to change topics once the kids had mastered the words. I learned quickly that kids get bored easily, especially with the same 8 words over and over. I tried to make things fun and cool to learn, but often found my new ideas devoured by my limited German skills. Even my efforts to break the children into groups in creative ways only led to the children staring at me as if I were one of the creators of the Tower of Babel. No, it feels good to have my last lesson planned out; easy on the English, heavy on the culture. I’m not wimping out, I’m supposed to teach culture too. Besides it is a lot harder to talk about my life in German than to introduce new words in English. Also it is the last full week of school, and what kid is really going to want to learn something during that week? Despite its connection with being one step closer to saying goodbye for good to my childrens, I am still glad to be free of the monster that is planning.
I am also looking forward to my coming vacation to East Europe. Though I mourn the loss of visiting Switzerland, as far as vacations go, I have done pretty well. (Pretentiousness alert) I’ve made it to Germany, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Scotland and soon to add: Poland, Slovakia, The Czech, and Hungary. All in a years work I suppose. For those of you that know me, you’ll know that I hardly ever take vacations. Well I guess I’ve never really had the kind of job that allowed a vacation, but now that I have been given the wander lust I will probably travel more often. The unfortunate side of this last vacation is its substantial drain on funds. I may very well return to the states an almost penniless man. Though, when I think about it, it isn’t such a bad thing.

2007-06-26T18:57:00.000+02:00

Mullettottag

Today, dear readers, is a cause for celebration. The celebration should involve a dance, but not yet, for now simply read the instructions: First, hold your index fingers high, then stand up, put on some music (I suggest something from Jay-Z’s newest album) and get into the beat. Now pump your fists up and down while turning in a full circle (still keeping with the beat). After a complete 360, kick each foot up to the knee of the opposite leg (one at a time of course) and slap it with your palm before taking it to the floor again. Feel free to improvise ‘whoots’ and the like. Genießen, repeat. (Genießen = enjoy).

Now that you know how to properly celebrate, I will tell you what it is you are celebrating (though if you have any knowledge of German, you might have already guessed). You’re celebrating Mullettottag, and though I doubt they’ll give you the day off for it (feel free to attempt it), it is at least a good excuse for a party. Mullettottag is the celebration of the death of my Euromullet, which I have been sporting since about October, 2006. I may have killed my chances of being in a German hard rock band, but at least none of you will have to lie if I ask how my hair looks.

In other news, I am currently in countdown mode. I have planned my final vacation, finished quite a few of the multiple tasks my job has provided me, and have a final work day to work towards. Yes, in three short weeks I will be totally finished with my job. Part of me gets really sad to think about it. Every day that I have fun at school, which is most days, I think about how soon I will step out of it’s halls for good. Today I had a conversation with some of the 5th grade guys about this. They were talking about how no new trainees would be coming, so I asked them if they were glad I was leaving. Their faces turned suddenly a little sadder as they said no. Perhaps to make them feel better I promised I would come back, which I do plan on doing, Altes Lager is a special place for me. I spent the whole day with the fifth class today helping with a project they were doing. It was fun, though a little frustrating because the kids really took no initiative whatsoever. It was still nice to spend time with them, of all the classes, the 5th class I am the closest to.

During the day, the question of: ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ came up once again. I was feeling particularly sarcastic today, and, as I have answered this question about 50 times, I said that I had four. Technically, due to the way German works I could have meant it that I had 4 friends that were girls, so I wasn’t really lying. The kids didn’t buy it, and reacted a bit too seriously to it (though German children understand sarcasm better that most of the adults I’ve met, they still have a tough time dealing with it.). Anyway, I finally gave them a straight answer, which is that I don’t have a girlfriend. This led to a small conversation after my bus ride home. During the way, two girls got on the bus (they were about 15 or 16 years old). When I got off the bus, one of the guys from the 5th class expressed his disappointment. ‘Two girls, that would have been perfect for you were on the bus and you didn’t even talk to them!’ He said. I said, ‘They were only 16, man.’ He didn’t really get it, but luckily one of the 5th grade girls was on my side. ’16 is too young for him,’ she told the boy. Somehow, I still think I will hear something about it tommorow.

Anyway, that is about all for now. Commence Celebration.

2007-06-13T21:27:00.000+02:00

I'm...in love?

I like to think they said it because they want me to stay, because they are going to miss me, but are too young to put those feelings into meaningful words, made harder still by the fact that anything too meaningful in German and you run the risk that I won’t truly appreciate it, at least not for all it is worth. I like to think that, but I suppose I am also feeling a bit sentimental. Not sentimental enough, however, to be enjoying this ‘nasty heat’ as the weather has been described recently, without any air-conditioning. Anyway, I suppose I should take a few steps back into the ‘Vergangenheit’ (that is the past, and it is a fancy word that I don’t get to use all that often) and tell you what they said, and who these ‘they’ people are in the first place.
First off, I don’t mean ‘they’ in the general usual sense, as in ‘they told me to do it,’ or ‘that’s what they say.’ I am referring to a few of my students, 1st graders in fact, who I was talking to this afternoon whilst waiting for the bus home. The conversation began with a very strange question, though one that is, for whatever reason, quite popular for children to ask. ‘Are you in love?’ they asked me, it was a small group of two of three of them. In all honesty, the first thing I was wondering about was which one of the many rumours about my elementary school love life they were inquiring about. Explanatorywise, this year I have been presumed to be in love with: either of the English teachers, a few second grade girls, any female friend I’ve mentioned, a fictitious German girl who ‘lives in the area’, and a teenager who goes to our church (though only twice a year). The last one was the weirdest, as I happened to sit next to this girl on one of the Sundays that she came, then one of the old ladies asked me if she was my fiancé. First of all, I don’t have a fiancé, and second of all, the girl was 15, only spoke German, and grew up in the area. ‘Are you in love?’ the children asked again. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, still not sure what they were implying. ‘Uh! He doesn’t understand,’ they said. ‘I am not in love,’ I assured them. They weren’t buying it, ‘You are too in love, and you’re going to stay here because you never want to leave.’ At this point I realised they were not referring to any of the previous rumours. Though there was still at least half a mystery in their comments. ‘Would you mind telling me with whom I am in love?’ (I interject to say that I doubt my German was quite so impressive, with German using proper grammar is simply normal). Their answer was pretty simple: ‘Someone.’ It was then that I noticed they weren’t making fun of me. As the bus pulled up I started to wonder if what they were really saying was ‘You should stay here, and never go home.’ I wondered if it meant that they would miss me and that they would enjoy my presence in this place a bit longer. Luckily I was saved from all these cheesy thoughts by one of the sixth graders, who decided to take this time to ask me (in English) ‘Hey Keith, are you silly?’ Without taking into account how sixth graders think, I answered ‘No,’ which was immediately followed by ‘Doch,’ which is German for ‘Are too!’ only a little more all purpose, because sixth graders never actually ask questions, they just wait to tell you the right answers. I was then informed that silly meant ‘Dum’ in German, which is the word for ‘Dumb’ or ‘Stupid.’ Nothing snaps you back to reality faster than being made fun of by a sixth grader. Even if it is in jest.

2007-06-06T19:17:00.000+02:00

A Treatise (und mein Gedanken) gegen Grammatik. [A Treatise (and my thoughts) vs. Grammar]

The weather today was much more gorgeouser than it has been in a long while. The sun is shining, the birds chirping, and a gentle east wind is sweeping o’er the plains. My mood is much better than in recent days, though if I think too much a residual sadness nags at the back of my mind. It is wedged there mainly because I don’t want to think about it, but the reason behind it is the impending sense of leaving, yet again, somewhere I’ve grown accustomed to. (I know I know, somewhere to which I have become accustomed is the proper ‘Don’t end a sentence with a preposition’ way of doing things, but this is free verse.) As I have previously stated, some things about returning ‘home’ will be nice, but, frankly, I’ll miss the umlauts and the esstet. (ÜÖÄß)
Today was Wednesday, which means kid’s Klub (or Club, I am not sure how the official spelling goes). I admit that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, mostly because it is a nice day outside and it’d be nice to enjoy it proper. Now, as fate has a funny way of working things out, Klub happened one of the most funnest things I’ve done today. (apparently ‘funnest’ isn’t a word, so in spite I am writing the most incorrect: ‘most funnest’. It is a protest). The opening round included me playing Fußball (the table version) against a few of the kids. I ended up winning and bragging a lot, leading to the childrens complaining that I shouldn’t angeben (that means brag). I would’ve bragged also if I lost, as is my way. Then we cooked dinner as an activity and I joked with the kids. They were a little annoyed, but kids love attention really. I am sometimes critiqued as being a bit too sarcastic, but I like to think I know when to be serious. Anyway it was a lot of fun.
Gary and I also visited Treuenbritzen today. It’s a nice little German city, and we had coffee and I got some ice cream. Just cause I felt like it. It was pretty nice and relaxing.
School was okay, the highlight being one of the kids (Lukas, who I have talked about before) felt the need to scream my name as loud as possible not just the first time he saw me, but every time he saw me today. This was about 5 times, two only moments apart. Though the tone and volume were a bit on the annoying side, I think the thought was genuine excitement, so I let it slide. Not that I could’ve gotten him to stop anyway, as the kids never really listen to me (or so it seems). He also has taken to referring to me as ‘mein Keith’ and ‘mein Kumpel,’ the first being a bit possesive, but the second just meaning my buddy. I have many ‘Kumpel’s in the school, one even defended my honour on the bus today. One of the third graders was mocking me a bit, just in fun really, until another one came and punched him. Then he gave me five and took off to where ever he came from. Though slightly violent, it was a rather kind act.
All these nice things that happened today bring me back to that wedge of sadness that is hiding in the corners of my mind. They are all things I can process but not really think about, as they all lead to thoughts like, it’d be nice to see how these kids turn out when they are older. But the truth is that I most likely will never see or hear from any of them ever again. It is a bit of an extreme thought, but it is, nonetheless, realistic. Maybe it really is time that I stuck in one place for a bit.

2007-06-05T18:36:00.000+02:00

Arrgh! Your mind has been corrupted, if you are using firewall software, you may have to disable it.
When copeing with losses, we often go through 7 stages (stages of grief, yea yea). If they are, indeed, true, then I am in the anger phase. A few days ago I would’ve claimed sadness, or perhaps even denial. Now it is more anger. I have been in a bad mood since Saturday, when I go stuck at boring children’s fest. It would’ve been okay had Gary been available to commiserate, but he was away on the wild goose chase of picking up the Russian Ladies Choir, which ended up taking from around 11AM until 3PM. Meanwhile I spent about 30 minutes playing with Ina’s children, and a long time in awkward conversations with my German ‘Opa,’ ‘Brother,’ ‘Father,’ and ‘Ina.’ I just felt like puting ‘Ina’ quotations (there I just did it twice). There were a couple other people who tried to talk to me and for a while I was keeping up. But I suddenly go struck by a bad mood, headache and lightheaded fit. It had pretty bad timing. I was sitting at a picnic table I had helped carry and set up, under a tent I help set up, when Ina came up to me. She asked if I wanted to take some pictures and I answered No, with a bit more malous and whineness than I orignally intended. Luckily it is not my normal disposition to refuse things or be mean and or whiney, so she could tell something was wrong. I explained I wasn’t feeling well and she had me go in Mom’s (Frau Förster’s) office and lie down. After 30 minutes of this I was feeling weird and didn’t want someone walking in on me and wondering what some weirdo was doing sleeping on the floor. I came outside just in time to see alot of children’s dance routines and a demonstration/comedy skit from the Gräfendorf volunteer fire department. They have a very old fire ‘truck’ in their possession. Atcually it is more like a horse drawn cart minus the horses. Instead the members of the fire department drug it around. On the cart was a pump of the variety you see on cartoon rail cars. The two sided up and down action kind, like on the Coyote and Roadrunner. This was used to pump the water. Let’s just say it didn’t really perform optimally. If there is ever a real fire in Gräfendorf, I hope they use something else. In the skit an outhouse ‘caught on fire’ (they just used smokebombs) and the fire department put it out apparently by spraying the crowd with water and breathing on the fire. The water never reached the outhouse, which wasn’t surprising seeing as the truck stopped a good 500 m from the fire. That turned out to be the second most entertaining 5 minutes of the entire day. The first was an accordian band playing Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown.’ (Of Arrested Development fame) Unfortunatly no magician was present. Shortly afterwards Gary arrived and we both fled from the event as fast as possible.
The major point is that the residue from that bad mood has lingered. The children sometimes get on my nerves, I’m tired of my job, tired of the walks from my apartment to the church to do anything, tired of wondering if I am understanding everything right. In short I am ready for a vacation. Or perhaps I am in the anger phase of dealing with leaveing and with this year being over. Soon I will have to decide what to do with my life, or at least the next part of it. I think that that too factors into the grief, part of me realizes that I am too old to jump from service project to service project. Despite my reluctance, perhaps it really is time to settle down, at least somewhere, and start working. It is simply alot of weight on my mind, which just makes me feel tired and cranky. And if that isn’t bad enough, even G-Mail has turned against me, delivering this message to me today: Arrgh! The page has been corrupted. If you are running security or firewall software, you may have to disable it.
I think Arrgh! Sums it up completely.

2007-05-31T19:18:00.000+02:00

Event Schmeevent

So I am going for two days in a row. The most substantial thing that happened today, though, was that I had an extra English lesson. Which means that I can take an early morning coffee break for the first period of school tommorow. This will be especially nice considering that on Saturday we get to wake up around 7 and drive out to Luckenwalde to help set up a tent or something. Perhaps multiple somethings. We will probably stick around most of the day and at some point play games with children. We might even teach something randomly American, like Dartball, or Hungry Hungry Hippos. Don’t mistake this for complaining, I have had my share of very lazy Saturdays and holidays. I am mostly commenting on the odd nature our job sometime takes on. Some weeks I forget that I am not just a simple English teacher. I am more like a local expert on English that can carry and assemble large and somewhat heavy objects. Perhaps more like a local expert on America and related subjects.
A recap of today would include: 5AM, wake up, hit the snooze, 6AM get out of bed, shower, 6:15 attempt to sleep, telling myself that if I miss the bus it’s no big deal, 6:50, head to the bus stop, fell groggy. 7:30 arrive at school and immediatly help the 5th class in an English lesson, 8:15 head to the store to buy Brötchen, enjoy a nice cup of coffee, chat in German to Frau Rasche. 9:30 teach 1st class about clothes in English, 10:15 teach other 1st class about clothes in English, 11:30 head for home. 12 noon, arrive home, attempt to stay awake, fall asleep on chair 14:00 read and think about doing something outside, 15:00 decide to go for a bike ride 15:15 find a pair of neighborhood kids/students and give them a lift on my bike. 16:00 get home and listen to some music (The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground is catchy and creative)...and after that it gets a bit boring. Plus I’m tired of listing things.
I’d like to take a brief moment to explain the providing of rides on my bike. First of all I call it ‘my bike’ to simplify things, I’m not 100% sure who’s bike it really is, but I am allowed to use it, and aside from Gary am the only person who does. I guess I could say our bike, but whatever, you get the picture. Anyway, my bike version Gold is kind of a peice of junk. I always say you don’t really need a nice bike, but I am starting to think there is a level of junkiness a bike can be that is practicably unuseable. (a side step, as German is taking over my brain, i felt the urge, and think it would’ve sounded better to say unusebar, or unbenutzbar, in that case, weird) So my bike version Gold has a seat that is too low, only one gear and no chain gaurd. Atcually it had a chain guard up until last week when I rode it up a hill that was to steep and bent the tire. I had no business driving up the hill really, but I thought the bike (version Gold) could handle it. The wheel bending cause the chain to come off, which, in turn, caused the chain guard support to snap. I don’t know why this happened, (though I suspect constant tampering in effort to stop the pedel from scraping it all the time becuase the sound was annoying) but it did. This caused the pedel to connect with the chain gaurd, instead of just scraping against it, bending it fiercely upwards. Then the pedel got blocked from revolving because the now broken chain gaurd was in the way. Fed up with the situation, I decided not to give the problematic chain gaurd a chance of rehibilitaion. Okay, I bent it back down but the pedel nocked it up again. After that I ripped the chain gaurd off, it was annoying and broken, and the bike is old. I still felt a little bad. Anyway, I was riding my bike (version Gold) and I see a couple of my first grade kids. One of them asks if he can ride my bike. But his stubby legs couldnt reach the pedels. That was harsh, 1st graders are supposed to be short. Anyway, he formualted a complicated plan where he rode on the ‘luggage rack’ of my bike. All European bikes have this on top of the back wheel, it is a little rack where you can install a basket, or just put little stuff. It apparently can double as a seat. After I drove him to his destination, I was to pick up his friend and do the same. After that I was free. I accomplished the task, but not without a few popping complaints from my bike (version Gold), who seemed to think the extra 90 pounds was too much for it. Anyway, now you know probably the most eventful part of my day. Enjoy it.

2007-05-30T23:05:00.000+02:00

Leave a Comment For This Post, Everyone. Really, Please. Now if you can.

So I don’t have much time. I mean tonight to write, in general too really. I realize it has been awhile, but I guess the end seeming so near I haven’t felt like it. Time flies by these days and I either get inspired and the computer is busy, get inspired and forget, or just fail to be inspired. At first it was easy, everything was so different, anything happening felt new and exciting. But now it is all normal. Living in Germany is normal. Comments about my German being good or bad are normal. Kids saying cute things are normal. I soak it in but don’t feel compelled to share. These are my moments, so forgive my selfishness, but I don’t have many left. I bounce back and forth these days from wanting to leave to wishing I could stay. Mostly wishes to leave are inspired by the knowledge that it is almost time to leave, knowing that, I just want to be able to rip it off like a bandage. I am not really ready to forget all that has happened this year, to leave behind the high fives and only speaking to children in German. The monthly calls to my parents, postcards to friends, it was all just very nice.

Moving on, now that all that mush has been squeezed out the top of my brain. Today I am in a bad mood. I should feel good. Actually I did feel good early on. Not when I woke up. When I woke up I was dreading today. Not really because the class I would have to teach was bad, but because it was too early to wake up, and I knew I would only have one class period, so the day would be a waste. I toyed with staying home, but those who know me best know that it wasn’t really an option. Upon arriving to school I got a surprise. The sixth class was going on a field trip, and I was invited to join them. It was asked in this way: Frau Rasche ‘Do you want to go to the cinema?’ Me: ‘Uhh’ Frau Rasche ‘The answer is yes.’ So I went. I can’t say I wasn’t happy to have a work day that was basically chilling and watching a movie. The movie was in German, but I can understand enough that the whole ‘it’s in German’ task isn’t quite so daunting.
To explain my mood I will say this: If anyone is really happy, and wants to not be happy anymore, watch Bridge To Terebithia. It is a kid’s movie. But the end is a real downer, especially if you are excessively tired from staying up until 3AM and getting up at 6, being addicted to coffee and not having any and from sitting through a 96 minute movie in a foreign language. I won’t ruin the surprise. But it made me sad the rest of the day. Stupid movie. Not even Kid’s Club day and Adult English right after it could cheer me up. (Okay, they took my mind off of it, but only because they just made me more tired). But now I am staying up too late again to write this so you, my dear reader, won’t worry or complain. Happy Reading.

2007-05-11T21:39:00.000+02:00

Feel Free to Give Me A Penny

Reading other peoples blogs always inspires me to write one of my own. ‘If their boring lives can spit out a story, then surely my interesting life in Germany can come up with at least 3,’ I often tell myself. I think the real truth is that no one really sees their own life as exciting. I know it is the case for me-sure, I live in Germany, but I have been here for over 9 months now, the novelty wore off a long time ago leaving only my pitiful attempts to master the German language.
That isn’t to say that nothing ever happens. Why just today I sat in a garage watching my car (whom I decided to name ‘Scarlet’ against Gary’s wishes, who is still pining after ‘Deer Cutter Zwo’ or ‘Reh Schneider’, but watching our little Ford Fiesta getting her steering fixed and also getting ‘neue Schuen’ I was struck by a moment of inspiration, then again I was a bit bored.) getting fixed up. I sat there, looking past the posters of naked women that decorated the walls, wishing that I was skilled in the art of small talk. For a while here in Germany I was able to get by pretending my German was too bad to be able to carry a conversation. ‘I have plenty to say’ I thought, ‘if only I knew how.’ Now I cannot carry the same disillusion. Imperfect though my German is, I could still talk about the weather or how I need new shoes, or even what the kids did today. I can at least blame a little on my lack of German grammar, but the bulk of it lies in my inability to make small talk. Set me in front of a room full of people and I can pull a long winded speech out of thin air, but stick me in a little garage one on one with a mechanic and I freeze up entirely. Part of the problem is that I put too much pressure on myself. ‘Come on,’ I urge my windpipes ‘say something...Anything...no really, now.’ But it never seems to work.
Last weekend I spent my Saturday with Sophie Hanneman, the daughter of my favourite teacher at Blönsdorf. We were talking in English to help her with her upcoming exam in English class. For a few minutes we managed a few things, but I spent most of the time trying to think of things to say. I guess with certain people, or certain times I just can produce anything worthy of sharing with the world. I blame my vivid imagination, which often beckons me to my internal world, which most other people don’t understand. When I am feeling extroverted sometimes I share some of these thoughts that occur in my moments of silence, they usually receive laughs or funny looks and only a few select people (like my buddy John Eicher) are able to roll with them and make me feel a little more normal. All this to say that after spending the whole day on the beach surrounded by naked babies and topless old women, I was spent on the external world. We had already talked about former jobs, possible future jobs, the weird hobby that is windsurfing and how nice the weather had been. All of these conversations were forced from my brain while my true thoughts were spinning pictures of past events. I sat in the passenger seat, attempting to stop thinking. ‘It’s a long and boring ride,’ I thought ‘so say something interesting to pass the time.’ After a few moments trying to think of something interesting, I realized I was stalling. ‘I’ll say something...now,’ I thought. Just as I thought the word ‘now’, however, my windpipes locked up. ‘Oh no,’ I thought ‘I’ve lost the ability to talk.’ And for a few minutes this was true. In a panic, wondering if I had spontaneously gone mute, I thought of something interesting, anything, to say. I attempted to begin my sentence, but froze like a child on the high dive, staring down the depths to the pool so far below. Finally I spit out something about school, it was so boring I don’t even remember what it was, but I rejoiced the reclamation of my vocal cords. Most of the rest of the journey passed on in silence.
After Scarlet (sorry Gary) was all finished, the mechanic (coincidentally Frau Hanneman’s Husband) and I took her out for a test drive. I told him about my lack of German speaking abilities, he said not to worry about it. He explain the problems Scarlet had had, and how he fixed them, and I nodded in recognition even though I wasn’t completely sure what he was talking about (car parts are not essential to my German vocabulary). We laughed at people who stared at us, and Herr Hanneman explained that the car was his son’s first Automobile. The test drive only lasted a few minutes, but we had a pretty decent, if not mostly one-sided conversation.
It seems that conversation is, as my father is fond of saying, a two way street. One person can’t really carry the whole of it, especially if that person is me. One thing I’ve learned during my time in Germany is to focus on what I can do, instead of what I can’t. The bulk of this lesson was delivered by my friend Dietmar Claßen, who told me that self pity is like peeing your pants in the winter. (I wrote more on that in December). His words left a lasting impression, especially the ones he said about learning German. ‘It is important,’ he said ‘to concentrate on what you can say, instead of what you can’t say.’ Thus far, those words have never lead me astray.

2007-05-08T17:14:00.001+02:00

Let the French make Toast

Some stories, dear readers, have fallen by the wayside. I feel I must apologize for those, but those who know me are likely to receive an ear full the next time they cross my line of sight. I have written a few down, which I may type out on slower days, but I am afraid I must jump ahead to the more recent past. After an epic case of what I have scientifically named Stomach Blues that lasted an entire weekend, I was a bit weary about returning to work this past Monday. The 6AM alarm found me feeling the most awake I would the entire day. After falling asleep on the bus, I found my legs walking me to the teacher’s lounge while my head had taken to delivering a sharp pain every few augenblicks (German word for moment, literally, eye blinks). Upon my arrival I was subjected to questioning by the teachers. ‘Feeling better?’ they would ask. ‘Yes’ I would reply, ‚a little.’ They didn’t really buy it. I blame my weary delivery. I believe some of them caught on to the stubborn approach I have developed toward being sick, or perhaps it was simply motherly instinct, and it is quite possible that they assumed I could not take care of myself (those of you that know me, realize there is a little truth to that). Whatever the reason, one of my favourite teachers, Frau Hanneman began talking me through a list of remedies and suggestions in the form of orders. Things like, drink tee and eat something called Zwieback. Both of which she later procured for me. First she looked up Zwieback, the dictionary said it was ‘French Toast’. I was somewhat taken aback. All these years and French Toast is good for your stomach. Surely not. It wasn’t until later, when Frau Hanneman returned with Zwieback and Fennel tea that I realized what it was. Zwieback can best be described as whole crutons, without any flavour, and seem to be similar to the American, at least in my family, saltine cracker. I still haven’t given up completely on French Toast.

2007-04-20T16:24:00.000+02:00

Jüterbog wird 1000.

It has been, if you haven’t noticed, a long time since I have written one of these things. Like many of people who have seen or even just heard of the South Park movie, I blame Canada. But in the case I have recht. (the right) (or to say the whole sentence in German: In diese teilung habe ich recht.) But now I’m just showing off. Heartfelt apologies. For those of you who know Spanish or another foreign language now is the time to use it in order to curse me under your breath. Or over your breath for that matter as I won’t understand it if it isn’t German. All that aside, I have much to talk about, so I probably won’t get to all of it.

Perhaps you are asking yourself: ‘why is he blaming Canada?’ Well that much is easy, you see, a group of Canadian kids (and by kids I mean, of course, Teenagers) came to Altes Lager for a couple of days on a missions trip. It was a great time. I can say, with Ernst, that Gary and I both enjoyed their visit. It was cool to speak some English with them, but it was even cooler to get to translate for them a little. The leaders from the Canadian kids were cool people also. Two of them had lived in Altes Lager before, so it was neat to hear their perspective on this place, and to see the nostalgia on their faces. It is a feeling I know I will have. It is really a special place. The other two leaders were Science people, which was very cool. Everyone involved with the group was really nice, and it was a lot of fun to just hang out. It was so much fun, in fact, that I didn’t have time to write any blogs for the two weeks they were here.

The matter was made more complicated when I went on vacation a mere week after the Canadians left. I visited 3 countries, and each was cool in its own way. I suppose I should write about those at this point, and then get to the more recent stuff, which really isn’t much.

So, on vacation I visited Gary’s brother, Tim. He is a student in Norway at the moment, so he lives in Oslo. On Norway I have this to say: Everyone should visit Norway at one time or another, especially people who have never visited Scandinavia. This is because you will have your mind blown by currency. When you step off the plane and ask for a train ticket to the city centre, the cashier will ask you for 86 Kroner (Crowns). If you’re like me, you will mentally panic for a second while your brain converts that to something less formidable. 86 Kroner is like $14 US, 11€ or, I think, $16 Canadian. In any case, it is still a lot of currency to disseminate on a train ride that only lasts about 7 stops. It costs me 10€, for example, to ride the train to Berlin and back. So visiting Norway is a rip off as far as money is concerned, but it is a nice looking country. Mind you, Oslo isn’t the prettiest city, but it is right on the ocean, which is a nice sight. There is also part of Oslo that is on a ‘mountain’ which is also very nice. The farming towns outside of the city are rather quant, however, and seem nice and peaceful. My friend Tim described the people of Norway as seemingly cold; it takes a lot of time and effort to get to know them. That is true of most Scandinavians, at least in my experience. This isn’t to say they aren’t nice people, and I know of a couple in Oslo that were very friendly to me, it is just to say that people there are slow to trust you, or so it seems.

From Oslo I flew to Scotland, where I visited a friend I made at a camp I worked at. It was a good visit, namely because my friend ended up paying for just about everything, but it was great to catch up as well. Scotland is a cool place and I saw a lot of it from how to make Tartans, Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh in general, Ayr, the town of William Wallace, who never wore a kilt or blue face paint, to partaking of Haggis, which is quite tasty. I also found it cool to be able to understand everything without conscious effort. (Though the currency was a bit strange at first, I got the hang of it.)
From there it was back to Oslo for a stretch. There I mainly hung out with Tim’s friends and lazed around. Then we drove to Sweden. In Sweden, we stayed in a castle (though in Swedish and German, there is only one word to mean both Palace and Castle, so I can basically say that I stayed in a Castle.) It is used, currently, by a religious community. We were there to visit with this community, and it was interesting. It was a very peaceful and sunny stay. We chilled on balconies, soaking up the sun and playing guitar. We hiked around the grounds. We even found time to play floor hockey with some of the Swedish teenagers there. It was a nice end to a very relaxing and enjoyable vacation.

Since then I have been back in Altes Lager. Not much has really happened. I upset my 5th grade friend, Christina, by grading her paper and, as I didn’t see her name (which was on the back of the paper, apparently) I wrote: ‘Name?’ on it. She took offence to this apparently. Though, as is my habit, I made it worse when her friend, Maria, asked if she got a 1, which is an A, and I said yes, and then, as a joke, said: ‘Christina would have gotten a 1, but she didn’t put her name on her paper.’ I guess it was a bad joke, but not really. Girls act made about jokes sometimes even when they aren’t. Or maybe they really get mad, but eh, she’ll forgive me eventually. If not, she won’t have to see me again after too long. In general the kids were very good this week. They could be tired from the nice weather, which allowed them to play outside a lot and get out their energy. I also had a really strange dream last night. I remember mostly that it was strange, and not so much how it was strange. That is about all the news I have for this edition. Next time it will be a shorter blog.

2007-04-17T23:05:00.000+02:00

I Left My Voice in München. Ich last meine Stimme im München.

As I write and you take no notice of your precious working vocal chords, my poor voice is wandering German wilderness in hopes of hitching a ride towards Berlin. I guess I left it underneath my pillow in the hostel I stayed in, because it was certainly with me before I went to sleep (though, in my defence it was giving out on me a little before that). I guess I will explain a little, no, I will get to that, first I will go over a boring point to point of my train ride to Munich (aka München).
It started at 7:30am and ended around 13:45 in the München HBf. I could tell you it was long and boring, but it wasn’t really, it was quite enjoyable to relax and have no responsibility whatsoever. Getting to München, I was expecting a bigger city. Or at least to see some mountains in the background, but I guess chalk that up to my ignorance. I walked around the block a few times, and by block I mean the one around my Hostel because I had to wait until 3 to check in. It was dotted here there and everywhere with strip clubs, which was odd. I kept an ear out for Bayerisch because I had heard on many occasions that it is so different from Hochdeutsch that no one can understand it. I didn’t hear any, but I did see some postcards with it on them.
Finally I got into my hostel, set down my bag and got out my trusty but extremely outdated guide book. It told me of a good walking tour that started at the HBf, which was really close to my hostel. After searching for the place for about 30 minutes, I decided to check the HBf floor plan. I found the place I was looking for on the map and made a bee line for it, only to find that it had been replaced with the Starbucks I had walked past about 15 times. I decided just to take the subway someplace cool and walk around. I ended up at Marienplatz, home of the Glockenspiel and whatnot. While walking I heard quite a bit of English. I even helped a couple find something, though I only pointed as to be mysterious and possibly German in case they wanted to tell their kids about the nice German guy who understood them.
I finally ended up back at my hostel, hoping to be caught reading an English book and thus implored for English conversation. It finally worked and I met a college kid I will call Steve, though I think his name was like Eric or Paul or something with four letters. We talked about various European cities I should visit and about how Steve was in college and a business major. The lounge was pretty loud because there was a rock and roll band playing. Also the lounge area of my hostel was a bar. Well as soon as the rock band quits playing a flashing orange light graces the air. This was embraced with loud cheers and amplified by a person in a moose suit. A miracle? No, it was just the Jägerettes. But now I can at least report that I have been to a Jäger party, even though it was really quite lame. A few free Jäger shots later I found myself pretty tired, and sat down. I was then invited to join a conversation by having half a beer slammed in front of me with the order ‚You, Drink this!’ shouted at me. Not wanting or able to cause a scene as the background noise deadened my voice almost entirely, I decided to just take the mug and at least hold it. What followed was a German conversation. A short one, but at least I understood what was going on.
The next day I slept until I couldn’t sleep anymore, which was around 9AM. I was planning on meeting my friend at 10, so I had a good hour to kill. I walked to a park and read a little, knowing I would see a bit of München that day with a proper tour guide. I was only slightly bored. Meeting my friend was a bit more difficult than I imagined, Marienplatz, where I was to meet her, is a busy place for one, plus I didn’t remember exactly what she looked like. After a couple of phone calls I was able to find her. It was an enjoyable time. I spent most of it just talking to my friend and she showed me some of Munich’s best sites. I know this because we kept running into bike tour people. The first thing I did with her, though, was to eat Weißewurst, which is apparently the Bavarian thing to do. It was okay, but I was more impressed with the mustard.
After my friend left I was hit with a wave of lonliness that didn’t quit until I was halfway finished with my dinner of falafel. I decided at that point to meet some people at my hostel. I stormed the lobby and found some English speakers. There were a pair of Canadian girls on a random tour of Europe. A couple of English people who were living in Germany working on German skills. And the most interesting, a married couple from Chicago which consisted of a Packers fan from, of course, Wisconsin, and his wife from China. I ended up talking so much that by the next morning I had a sore throat.
On Sunday I had to check out by 10AM, which gave me about 5 or so hours between that and when my train left. I check my stuff at the train station and headed out to the Deutsche Museum, which was amazing. I spent my whole 5 hours there, though admittedly I was tired of it after about 3 hours. I had no where else to go really, and I paid 8 Euros to get it, so I was going to see every dang thing in there. My favourite were a few movies about Ginkgo biloba, and a gigantic model of the inside of a cell. Sorry if you don’t like Biology, but I am a big fan.
On the train ride home, I had a seat reserved. So I found it and settled in for a long haul to Berlin. A problem arose when a mother and her 3 year old daughter got on the train. They had also reserved tickets, but the good old Deutsche Bahn didn’t deem it necessary to seat them together. The 3 year old was next to me. Luckily I did the noble thing and switched with the mother. This put me beside quite a fateful passenger: An English speaker. An American. It was a woman from Arizona that was teaching English in Berlin. We had a long conversation about the specifics of English teaching. I ended up talking the rest of my voice out (which gave me a day off of work, because you can’t teach without talking). It was cool and I got a contact in Berlin, though, I have yet to email her. But things have been busy, which is, of course, another story.

PS Sorry this is really late.

2007-03-14T21:27:00.000+01:00

Lass mich nur wissen: Ist die Schwimmbad Trocken oder Naß?

Waldemir isn’t doing his homework. I blame Gary. Well, only secondarily, you see, Gary gave Walde his Gameboy DS, and his Final Fantasy game. Walde loves Final Fantasy. He won’t stop playing. It is addictive, I would have to imagine. An outsider might think that perhaps Waldemir is our adopted son, he isn’t. More like adopted brother, but in actuality our only real friend in Altes Lager. Those in the know would ask about Daniel, who is also a friend, but who lives in Lukenwalde. For the past few nights I have been attempting to help Walde in Math(s) and Physics, and a little English. Waldemir doesn’t like his English teacher, and I don’t think highly of her either. She gives pretty pointless assignments.

Other news is the fact that this week I went to the swimming pool twice (Schwimmbad). The first was with Walde and his mother. Walde’s mother is very nice, but afraid of driving and riding in cars. She spend much of the ride there and pretty much all of the ride back, yelling comments about Walde’s driving. The yelling wasn’t from being angry, but rather from fear. I spent the whole ride home trying not to laugh out loud as Walde’s mom tried to get her mind of the road by repeating everything she did at the sauna to Gary for about the 5th time. It was all pretty funny, but I have to clear up that Walde’s mom is awesome and is also the maker of the best cake I have ever eaten in my 24 years of existence (give or take a couple years I don’t remember because I was a baby, but I seriously doubt I could eat cake at that age, and if so it wouldn’t have been very good cake.) Though I have to say that my Grandma’s pineapple upsidedown cake is still my favorite.

My second time was today, which is Wednesday. I went with the Kinder Klub, which is comprised of 12 and 13 year old kids. I guess they aren’t that young now that I think about it. But still to young for me to really have fun around. Plus they only speak German, and make fun of my German, but some of them only do it to tease me. Besides, my German is miles (kilometers) away from perfect. I spent a good 30 minutes going down the water slides, which have so far been at every German pool. Then I just took turns swimming in warm water pools, which aren’t as refreshing as cold water pools, but relax you.

Currently I am gearing up for my trip to München, which is Munich for you English speakers. I meet someone from Munich in Paris and she is going to show me around a bit. It should be fun, or weird and awkward. I am hopeing for the fun side. It’ll be my first taste of travelling alone, maybe I can be social and get some friends out of the deal. I am a little nervous to be honest, which is something you aren’t supposed to admit to, but I am. Sorry if you thought I was impervious to such things.

2007-03-08T20:34:00.001+01:00

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?

2007-03-06T19:06:00.001+01:00

Grade A Student

First of all, if you want to be impressed, I am currently reading a book written in German. If you’d like a grain of salt with that, it’s a book written for the 2nd grade level, proudly declairing on the spine that it is written for 8 year olds, or older. I fall into the older category, though working with kids so long has made me feel younger.
Now for how I really wanted to start this blog off:
So I was chilling with my buddy Armando today during school. Okay, Armando happens to be in the 5th grade, but he’s still pretty cool. Anyway, during the 5th grade English class I was sitting next to him. We started off with a little test, which I got to participate in. The teacher said some words and phrases in German and we got to translate them in English (I’m using Jared’s patented optomistic approach, which I am quite fond of using). I was the only one in the class to get them all right, gaining me a 1, which is the German equivilent of an A+. Then the kids read out some English sentances and translated them into German, I got to do one that read: ‚It is hard to learn German words. I know. One day I know them, then I forget them again.’ My translation ‚Es ist schwer Deutschen Worten zu lernen. Ich weiß. Ein tag kenn Ich die Worten, aber am nächsten tag vergiss Ich die Worten noch mal.’ Earned me the remark from the teacher ‚He is the best student in the class.’ So I smoked a bunch of 5th graders in English. I don’t really feel all better than anyone. Maybe a little. But honestly it does make me feel good about my progress in the German language, at least for today.
I also helped the 6th class make and eat a fruit and normal salad. It was pretty good. Well I can speak for the normal salad, which in German was called Buntesalat, which translates literally to ‚Color Salad’ (I’m pretty sure that is a poor translation.). On the bus I had a long conversation with Pascal (a first grader, who called my teeth yellow, but has no teeth of his own...but he didn’t mean any harm by it really) about whether or not I could have his toy cars. We decided I couldn’t. In a few minutes Walde is supposed to come over so I can help him with his Physics homework. I will tell you Physics wasn’t my favorite subject of all time, but thanks to my professor’s tendency to make his tests almost exactly like the study test, it is a subject I passed with all A’s (I think my average was 102, but I don’t want to brag).
Now that you are all sufficiently impressed with me, I’ll give you the bad news. Well really the worst thing that happened today was I accidently stepped in a big pile of dog poo, it took forever to get my shoe cleaned.

2007-03-03T20:02:00.001+01:00

Wheres the Schlüssel?

Last night I found myself locked in the Church. Not in the youth group fun sense, but, rather in the ‚the door’s locked and I don’t have a key’ sense. I was in the church with Gary, cooking dinner and then I stayed back to check my emails. Unfortunately earlier that day I had left my church keys in my room. I finished up on the computer and started the process of shutting everything off and locking other doors, which got me thinking about keys. I reached down absently to the place where I normally tote my keys, a front belt loop on my ‚Trousers.’ I noticed that they were either way lighter and less sharp than usual or they weren’t there. I looked down to find they were gone. Coincidentily, Gary had just mentioned that day how we could climb out the window should we ever get locked in. Had that not been in my mind I might have opted for the more lazy option of sleeping on a couch, or in true lock in form, not sleeping at all and spending the whole night playing mine sweeper (or more likely writing something). I guess I keep forgetting they don’t have screens here and that we are on ground level. Had I been locked in a church back home, I don’t think climbing out a window would be an option. So I snuck into the men’s bathroom, though there was no reason for sneaking, honestly, and clambered out the window. After that life just returned to normal.

2007-03-02T22:50:00.000+01:00

Ich war einmal ein Geburtstagkind.

Before I commence with the story telling I will preface with this peice of fact: Yesterday, March 1st 2007, was a wonderfully excellent birthday. I begin, however, with a story from today.
Moments after arriving to my first class this morning, I found myself being led to an empty chair, which was suspiciously placed in the center of the room. Soon I was surrounded by children all wishing me a happy belated birthday. Then all the boys encircled my chair as the class erupted in song. Hoch sein dein leben, Hoch sein dein leben, dreimal: Hoch, Hoch, Hoch. Well something to that effect. On the three Hochs I was hoisted into the air by the guys. In Germany, birthdays are important, and I definately felt important on mine.
I woke up in the mindset that things would function normally for the most part. I figured some of the kids would remember it was my birthday and shake my hand. Upon arrival to the bus stop, this did happen, only all the kids remember and all jockied in line to be the first to shake my hand. Honors went to my buddy Dima, who is a cool kid from the sixth class, and I’d say we are pretty good friends. The rest of the bus ride was filled with stolen glances at me and Herzlichen Glückwunsches. This was enough to make anyone feel important and special. So I get off the bus feeling pretty good, and make my way to the Teacher’s Lounge (I know you are all still jealous of that) when I get there, the first thing I see is a small fire in front of my usual sitting spot. The fire came from 5 candles that were stuck in a birthday cake. The teachers were standing in a line and singing ‚Happy Birthday,’ then they all came and shook my hand and some even hugged me. Amazing stuff. I started talking to the Biology teacher and found out she had a lesson in my free period, so I went along. It was the sixth graders, who atcually let out a whoop of joy when they found out I was coming to their class. They shook my hand and then sang ‚Happy Birthday’ (with Lieber Keith instead of Dear Keith, which really just made it all the better). Then I taught the first grade, who sang me the German birthday song (which ends with the Dreimal hoch song), which is really a nice song. I don’t know the words, but they say nice things about the birthday kid, and not just happy birthday. The best was yet to come, however. While waiting for the bus I was the subject of much more handshaking, but then a girl from another first grade class. Her name is Sandra and she is a good kid really, and likes English. She comes up and says ‚Happy Birthday, nein...warten...um...’ and then she sings all of ‚Happy Birthday.’ It was really very sweet.
The rest of the day was fairly normal. We went to the truckstop to celebrate with our friends there. To celebrate they gave Gary and I a free shot of vodka, well fig vodka, which tastes pretty good really. I checked my 30 some odd facebook messages (Thank you to all who sent their best, I felt quite besonders [special]) And that, as they say, is that.

2007-02-25T20:01:00.001+01:00

Family Tides

Today was my host father, Klaus’s birthday. I think he said he was 54. Klaus is a cool guy and I am glad I know him. Today we celebrated by eating way too much food and speaking (or rather, listening) to alot of German. There were interesting conversations about the DDR and problems people have here, like a lack of doctors in the area. There was also a long discussion about planting flowers and other garden/yard type plants. I always find it hard to get a word in in discussions like these. Partly because I worry my German is too bad, and partly because the people involved were speaking very loud and fast. Or at least it seemed as such to me. It was quite a feast, however. I wish I had brought my camera to capture its glory, but you’ll be glad I didn’t because you would be einfach jealous. I like to throw the word einfach into everyday topics. It means more of an idea to me, but in English it’s a triad, it can mean Simply, simple, easy, easily, and in a smaller extent it can mean sort of. It’s hard to explain, but I think saying you’d be einfach jealous would mean like you would get jealous without trying to. I don’t know, I’m a bad translator because I’ve stopped trying to put some words into English. I just accept them as being exaggeration marks, or symbols as to how you should feel about something someone said. I’m not saying I understand all German, not hardly. The other night we watched Pirates of the Carribean 2 and I rarely caught a word of what they were saying. I can tell you that I wish I did, but I didn’t. Some days I just get tired of German. But in general I like the language. It isn’t beautiful like Italian or spicy like Spanish, it is kind of utilitarian. There is something about it though.

It was fun spending time at the Förster’s, I just found myself wishing, as always, that I’d’ve said more. But alot of times in situations like that in English I don’t say much. I just don’t have alot to add to serious discussions. My thoughts are often too random. Take the conversations about the DDR. I really thought it was interesting, and for the most part paid attention, but when people are speaking German it is even eaiser to space out than when people are talking English. So some of the time my thoughts drifted to upcoming vacations, or something weird like characters in Fairy Tales, or Unicorns. Stuff like that isn’t the most normal for me, but lately I have been feeling strange. I am often really tired at night but I can’t sleep, and when I do sleep I have weird dreams. I don’t wake up feeling rested, I just wake up and feel like staying in bed. My thoughts have been racing by and varied, and I find it hard to concentrate. Maybe all this German is making me crack up, maybe I wasn’t made to wake up at 6AM every day. Or maybe it is the sign of some weird sickness I have gotten. It is hard to tell, but I feel very tired. I will leave you all with this thought: Learning German is very hard. Once you’ve learned a little, you find a million other things you should have learned along the way to learning those little things. You can go over in your head the proper grammer for everything, but once it is your turn to speak, anything can slip out. German is hard, I keep in mind I have never studied it in my life and have come about 5 million miles at seeming light speed. But it is still very hard and I have millions of light years to go. (I did mention that my mind is working strangely today, didn’t I?)

2007-02-25T12:11:00.000+01:00

Hodge Podge

It was a strange week for me this week. For starters I have been sleeping somewhat badly, which made for a quiet tired work week and a pretty lazy weekend. Though I woke up and felt awake around 7AM both weekend days, I laid around until 9 just because I could. Most days this is not an option for me, so I decided to capitalize on the opportunity to be lazy. Though I suppose sleeping until 9AM is hardly considered lazy in the States. Not on a weekend, but these days, to me here in Germany, sleeping till 9AM just doesn’t make any sense.
Other changes in my personality is my use and atcual addiction to using a daily planner. People that know me know that despite my many attempts to get organized, a daily planner is something that I would normally forget about in about 3 hours. But these days I find myself glancing over at my planner longingly, wishing I had one more thing to write down in it, and often double checking what I already have written down. I’ve also become more honest about telling people when they are wrong. The other day I asked the 2nd Graders a question, and alot of people tried to answer it, but were wrong and I just said, You’re wrong, without even feeling a slight twinge of guilt. They were wrong, after all.
The weather this week has been comparatively bright. I think there was only 4 days of cloudy skies instead of the usual 6 or 7. This made for a few short bike rides, even though some days it was quite cold and windy. I am excited for warmer weather, which will bring renewed bike riding and walking opportunities. The sun has also started to come up earlier and go down later, which brings a bit of cheer back into my life.
As for school this week, Monday was Fasching, the offcial Fasching this time and not just one of the many pre-Fasching celebrations that started with February. This meant no classes, as most other Bundesstaaten got the day off of school. We still went, but we threw a party. For lessons I taught Costumes, which was a big hit with the kids. I attempted to play Bingo with them, but mostly it did not work because I didn’t know all the words to explain it. But the kids didn’t seem to mind. I told them what the costumes they wore were in English, and though they won’t remember, they at least thought it was fun.
A good story from my work as an English assistant: I was with the Sixth class, which is a difficult age for kids to be in any language, and we were learning comparisons. One thing I like about the English lessons here is that at the end of a unit, the teachers ask the kids what they though of the unit, and the kids can say things like ‚It was boring,’ or ‚It was dumb’ and no one feels insulted. That is besides the point, but I like it. I was just helping the kids pronounce ‚Than’ and ‚Then’ when I heard one of the kids mocking me in German. I gave him a talking to in German about how I can hear him and that sort of thing. I was in the middle of this when the kids started chiming in with things like ‚Keith is better than you’ ‚You are lower than Keith.’ Though I felt somewhat bad for the guy, I couldn’t help but feel loved, which is something you don’t often feel from sixth graders.

2007-02-19T20:25:00.000+01:00

My Euro Mullet

One of the girls at school once asked me: ‚Wie viel freundin hast du?’ now, mind you it was meant to be a joke seeing as at the time she was referring to the number of 1st-4th grade girls that were hanging from most of my torso, but still, these days I have to take the question seriously. You see, I have a new, rocking haircut. It happened a few weeks ago atcually, when I finally gave up my goal of acheiving long hair after having longer hair starting getting on my nerves. (Between having to blow it dry and sweeping it out of my ears, I was starting to get shoulder aches.) I walked on down to the hair cutting place in Altes Lager named something like Hair Dreams, in English. I figured it would be a good idea, seeing as the name was in English. I took myself a seat and started waiting, as no one was really at the front desk. After about 10 minutes I started to get uncomfortable seeing as the lady getting her hair dyed kept giving me the ‚what are you doing here’ eye. I gave the hair cut lady five more minutes to show herself, but ended up walking out of the place as she didn’t seem too excited to have customers. I walked five minutes down the road to the other, less visable, hair cutting place, where I was met by a questioning stare by a lady cutting hair. I said quizically, ‚Ich brauche ein haar schere?’ The lady just looked at me for a second before saying ‚Wie bitte?’ ‚Ein Haarschnitt?’ She told me they were busy, and to come back in 30 minutes. I said Ok and passed the time in the Truck Stop watching TV. I came back to a more empty hair cuttery and the lady told me to have a seat. ‚Now, what do you need?’ asked the hair lady. ‚Well, I’m American, but I want something European I said.’ ‚What kind?’ She asked. I had no idea the kinds available, or the German translations. I made a thinking face until finally she had mercy and just said ‚Well, I just take some off the sides.’ I said, ‚Good idea,’ and resigned myself to get a Euro cut the next time. It wasn’t until later that day, when Gary saw my hair that he noted ‚Oh man, she left it long in the back, that is very European.’ I checked it out, and, sure enough, I had myself a Euromullet. Friends of mine can view it in all its glory on facebook. Everyone else can just imagine it shimmering in the partly cloudy, very windy weather of Altes Lager.
In other news, my cold has finally left my body, only to transport itself to Gary. I’m sure everyone else will blame the sandals he’s so fond of wearing. Today was Fasching, and at school we had a party for it. I dressed up like an American, mostly because the other teachers told me they were dressing up ‚A little bit’ which turned out to be a lie. I had difficulty explaining to the kids what I was, even with my American Eagle shirt and Polo jeans, but I wasn’t about to expose the flag on my butt, since that is a prime target for tiny first grade hands (among other hands, like random girls at concerts.) I guess I will explain that one. We went to a Snow Patrol concert with our fellow trainee Steph and two of her friends. It was standing room only, so things got a little crowded. All through the opening band there were two girls behind me who took to resting their hands on my butt whenever they felt like it. I was quite uncomfortable, but couldn’t move my body enough to turn around. Other than that the concert was quite good. We also have a new girl at school, she rides my bus, and this morning, as I closed my eyes to get a little ‚bus rest’ she woke me, by asking if I was asleep. I said no, and then she asked what I was dressed as for Fasching, I said an American. I guess it was just fun because the new kid said something to me. All the kids were excited to see me at the Fasching celebration, as if they never see me during the week. It was fun and made me feel good to have kids faces light up just by seeing me. Other than that I’ve just been reading, studying German, sleeping and listening to music.

2007-02-15T19:26:00.001+01:00

Valentines, Baselines and Games like Zombie

So yesterday was Valentine’s Day, which everyone insists they celebrate here, but I saw no real celebration. No valentines were made and passed out, no couples were parading themselves shamelessly through the streets. It was pretty much a normal day. Gary and I celebrated by engaging in the manly right of passage of teaching German kids baseball. This is an extremely difficult task, and we ended up playing a game that I could call chaotic at best. Then I helped with the Klub kids, we made Valentines and ate food and most of the kids coughed or sneezed on me. (There is a cold going around.) Then we watched Kill Bill, which is a decent movie (if you don’t mind excessive fake blood). I also finialized my second trip around Europe which will consist of me visiting Norway and Scotland (both of which use different currency than Euros, so I may just convert a few dollars to pounds and kroners, though Euros trade better.) It is stressfull to spend money, but trips are fun and I am hopefully going to have free places to stay. I am travelling on my own, but am visiting friends I have made during my life, so it should be fun.
Needless to say I didn’t get any Valentines, but eh, I never really got them anyway, so save your letters for something good like my birthday...or something. We also spent some time in the Truck Stop, which is a nice place to hang out and watch TV (which is something we can’t do everyday), the guy that owns it is very nice and sometimes gives us free things, so it is cool to hang out there.
Today we taught Baseball again, and it was easier as we were more prepared (I wrote out some rules in German, my written grammer is quite good, but I usually get confused when trying to speak) And the kids were better, and actually listened to us. It was alot of fun, even though I got stuck playing Catcher, which I don’t enjoy at all. I also made Valentines with the first graders, but it turned chaotic as they all asked for my help at the same time. We arrived home around 4 PM, pretty tired and looking forward to a little time to be lazy. I had just settled into relaxing with some Reliant K when my doorbell rang. It was Ina, one of our bosses, telling us we had Sportgruppe today, even though we were told it was next week. I roused Gary from relaxing and we grudgingly headed to the Sporthalle. It turned out to be pretty fun, we played soccer and a game called Zombie which is really quite fun. Then we all played this pointless game called something like Berliner Höhe Ball, or something. You just throw the ball in the air and call someones name, they catch it and yell stop and try to hit someone with it. If someone gets hit, they call the name. That is it.
It was a weird realization that we have been doing the sport group once every two weeks now for six months. I thought about the first time we did it, and I was excited about knowing some of the kids from school. We rode our bikes there, but it rained on the way back, we vowed never to ride bikes there again, but if we get the bikes fixed I am sure we will ride there again (we are a bit tougher about the rain nowadays). I remember it seemed to go on forever and I couldn’t understand what was going on at all. We knew no German whatsoever and the kids would try to tell us to do something but it made no sense. It is alot different now, we understand the kids, and sometimes give them suggestions. Not as many kids come, but it is still alot of fun. Sixth months gone by now, so fast, time does fly. I just think back to this time last year as I started my job lifegaurding at the YMCA, now I am enjoying the fruits of that labor, travelling across Europe, and I still wonder if it was worth the hours.

2007-02-12T19:33:00.000+01:00

Montag, ach nein, Montag

I’ve never been the greatest fan of Mondays. Today was a shining example of why I feel that way. Okay that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was hard to get out of bed when the alarm clock sounded at 5:50 AM. As far a teaching goes, it wasn’t a bad day, I taught one class by myself and helped with two others. I even sang ‚We Are Family’ with the kids even though I really don’t care for the song. About this time last week I was prepared to announce that my cold was on its way out the door, but it seems I was quite wrong. Perhaps it was a cold day in Berlin that brought its strength back, but it hit with force today. I’m feeling that light headed, apathetic feeling that is tied to a cold, and also haven’t really felt hungry all day, though I know enough to make myself eat something. Perhaps the reasoning for this Monday seeming so bad is that this past weekend we were graced by guests in Altes Lager. A fellow trainee and a few of her friends made their way here for a concert and stayed a couple of days. It made for a pretty amazing weekend, and for one that flew by a little too quickly. Also, Sunday I was graced by the voice of my former Housemate, Katie, which made the weekend even better. This made it even harder to fit into the Monday grind after a nice week at the Hort. Though it is nice to be around the kids again, who seemed to miss me, and who like my new haircut even if my fellow trainees (me included this time...) described it as a mullet, or at least as having mulletesque qualities. All in all, I admit, it wasn’t a bad Monday, but it was still a Monday and I still feel sick and tired and cranky. But, on the brightside, I am alive and living in Germany...so I guess it’s a tradeoff.

2007-02-08T19:30:00.000+01:00

Nochmal im Hort

After a mindblowingly amazing midterm conference, I returned not to work, but to Hort (nochmal). Sorry, that means again and for whatever reason, at this moment some things are easier expressed with German. Not that I am going around speaking German to myself, but German words keep creeping into my thoughts. I’m sure some might say it is a good sign, but I must reiterate that I have alot to learn in the German language. Anyway, all that aside, the Hort (like a Daycare, in case you have forgotten) is like a vacation to me, in that the kids are usually quite nice to me and want to talk to me. In school it is alot different because alot of the kids think English is boring, or too difficult, so they tend to not pay attention. At Hort I can just play games with the kids, which is what they like to do. Well, that and jump on me whenever the situation evolves. Though the kids tend to wear me out (for example; or, as I have used almost exclusively here in Deutschland, zum Beispiel; Today the kids thought it was fun to have me spin them around, and it was fun, until they all took about 5 turns and I was dizzy and exhausted [und die Kinder, zwar, fragt nochmal] meanwhile the kids asked for one more turn), and I also have taken to walking home (When you are walking, Altes Lager is perpetually 5KM away, or so it seems if you believe the road signs), I find working at the Hort a blast.
Another good thing about the Hort is that the kids tend to compliment me on everything. With the kids at Hort I don’t have to do something great, just better than them, or maybe just in general. Like today I found a guitar and tuned it up and started playing a bit. Now, I am pretty decent with a guitar, but the kids and the Hort teacher all came by and said it was great and that I could play well. They also have this snowboarding videogame which they let me play and which is not too difficult since you can do tricks by mashing buttons, on my second try I got some meager sum of points, but one of the kids declared that I was the best snowboad videogamer in the whole Hort. Of course, to put things in perspective, the same kid runs around calling me his best friend or best pal all the time, so he might exaggerate things abit. I guess what is really special about the Hort is that I feel appreciated and helpful and the kids are happy that I am there. I’m not saying that this is not the case at school, but at school I often get discouraged that the kids aren’t learning. It is just a nice change to feel not at all discouraged.
Also a random note on the weather: Holding true to the pattern of it getting really cold only after I shave my beard, it has gotten cold recently. It has snowed (sprinkled really) the past couple of night and last I checked was snowing right now. Nothing major, but enough to cover things in white, which is somewhat novel to me after a year in Louisville, where it snowed maybe once. My face was really cold on the walk back home today, but I survived, and it doesn’t feel extremely cold because there is really no wind chill, which I am used to. And now...Some pictures:

2007-01-28T12:15:00.002+01:00

And now for something completely different

Today started in Berlin. Early. But at the same time, moments too late. Our visitor, Mattias, had to catch an 8AM train from Berlin Hbf, but we woke up in the Mennoheim (our free hostel connection in Berlin) at 7:20 perplexed at why the alarm hadn’t sounded. That remains a mystery. It was an odd wake up, very subtle, as it was just Mattias’ voice saying „We should probably get up now, it’s 7:20.“ We didn’t rush because the subway station was only a 5 minute walk from where we were. As we approached it, we saw a train leaving. It was the subway line we should have taken. The next one came 20 minutes later, so we found a RE train heading to the Hbf at 7:50, which was pushing it, but it was our only option. Unfortunatly Mattias still missed his train, but being himself, just boarded a different one heading to the same place. After that Gary and I spend an hour waiting for the train home in McDonalds, where I drank a pretty week cafe au lait (called Milchkaffee in German) and Gary ate breakfast. I wasn’t eating because my stomach was in a rebellion, and I wasn’t sure McDonalds would end up stamping it out. Upon arriving home, my Handy (I have a cell phone now, but it is a business one) rang. It was our friend Walde (but it can be used for personal calls too) wondering where I was. Walde came over and we went on a mission to get the van from the Garage and then pick up some kids from Altes Lager and take them to a lunch meeting. This is when I started speaking in German, it was 11AM, I stopped speaking German for English around 8PM. The meeting turned out to be short and followed by about 5 hours of playing sports. We played soccer, volleyball, table tennis, basketball and even a little American football. We ate lunch and then played more sports, until finally Gary was ready to pass out. (Though we were both tired from Adventures in Berlin, physical activity and meeting new people tend to wake me up a bit). After that Walde, who recently got his driver’s liscense drove me into Jüterbog. I talked in German and he talked in English, and he was generally excited about driving. He loves it. After that we got Gary and went on an almost surreal mission which involved a delapedated house, some of the sixth graders (who haven’t been making fun of me after all, so I feel like a jerk for thinking that) a crate of beer and of course, Walde driving. It is hard to explain. Basically Walde said, I want to deliver this crate of beer to Altes Lager (which I thought we were in, but we actually live in Flugplatz) but I need someone to help carry it. So we get in the car and drive a little ways, then suddenly stop. Walde says, I’ll be right back, I’m getting help, and he comes back with a band of 6th graders who he says are going to gaurd the beer for him. Then we drive to an beat up old house and climb up 4 flights of dark, rikity stairs, me traging a crate of beer) We finally come upon a room which is obviously used for parties as it has posters on the walls, candles and couches in it. Walde and the kids banter in Russian a bit and then we head out. That was pretty much it. Then as we are heading up to the room, I run into a group of German and Russian men on the porch of my building. One shakes my hand, asks Wie Geht’s then out of no where gives a huge tug on my beard (which hurt) and said „Was ist mit das schieße?“ (What is that crap? Is the clean version, and also what I happened to be thinking at the time). It was weird.

PS On the way to my room, having just typed this, I ran into the guys on the porch again, and we talked in German about how I liked Germany (I think they wanted me to say USA was better, but I didn’t) and then about the few Russian words I have learned. It was pretty fun

Other postscripts: One, to Deutchmaedchen (though I feel compelled to correct to Deutsch) I thank you for reading and enjoying my somewhat random stories, hope you learn something from them.
Two, to Dan: The children, of course, remember you. They ask me if I know you pretty much everyday, and some of them even call me Dan on occaision (which I permit, as the general consensious was that you were pretty dang cool)

2007-01-28T12:15:00.001+01:00

A Walk on the Wildschwein

The presence of Mattias inspired a few tramps through the area we have always refered to as The Boarlands, an ironic title as we had never seen a boar in them, though we had seen a few shopping carts (lacking, of course, the 1 Euro coin needed to unlock them). On the first walk we took, Mattias found himself a nice stick (christened Excaliboar, because Mattias carved it into a fine point, should we encounter any boars on our travels) and we made ourselves a nice camp fire. On the way to the fire, and finding of Excaliboar, we encountered at least 3 boars. They were far from the path, but snorted at us anyway, and we were generally creeped out by this. A few more wanderings passed without event, but a few days later found me and Mattias wandering in an increasingly dark wilderness. We had set out to find boars, but had pretty much given up and decided to build a fire. We found a good spot, but not any good fuel for the fire. After what we later realized was about 2 hours, we gave up and decided to look for a new location. As we progressed towards this new location, the skies begain to grow dark and heavy with storm clouds. I expressed my concern, but noted the lack of wind was a good sign, so we continued onward. We had gotten farther down the path when I noticed a cool, sharp breeze, which is usually associated with a drop in pressure and a sure sign of a storm coming. I told this to Mattias, and after a few minutes diliberation we decided to head back, somewhat defeated with the fact that we had not only not seen a boar, but had also failed to start a fire. We had just gotten going on a rousing conversation when we heard a noise in the not so distant woods. We slowed down and ceased talking in order to ascertain what had made the noise. It was then, when everything had just gotten to its quietest, that a group of boars bounded from the woods and onto the path we were walking on, only a few feet in front of us. They crossed to the other side and bounded in the woods. We were sufficiently excited. We waited a few moments in case more came, and then continued walking, only to have our walking interupted as something else bounded from the woods at the same spot where the boars once were. Streaking across the path in tow or in pursuit (we were unsure of what the animal(s) was(were)) of the aformentioned boars. We ceased walking once more and watched as yet another group of boars bounded across the path. We waited a few moments and then very slowly inched forwards, me watching one side of the path, clutching my headlamp, and Mattias, gripping Excaliboar tightly, watching the other. We made it out with our lives and bodies still in tact, though it was quite an adrenal experience. The rest of the walk passed with no event.

2007-01-28T12:12:00.000+01:00

Ein Schlaufen Brauchen (Ich)

It has been an odd week in good old Altes Lager (even though technically I live in Flugplatz). This is because our fellow Intermennonite came to visit. He had left a few of his vacation days up till the last minute, and decided to come visit us and maybe Berlin with it. It is odd how guests interupt the feeling of a place, we have had a couple of guests now and while one brought a good chill attitude with an air or adventure, the other brought an adventerous attitude which limited my hours slept this week to a bare minimum of 25 hours. That is including naps. Breaks down to 5 hours a night, and that is being generous. 6AM feels even earlier after going to bed around 2AM. I ended up feeling tired and a little sick the whole week, but in those hours between 12 and 2AM when we’d commence jamming on Guitars, I found it hard to drag myself away, even for precious and most nessisary sleep. The result was me falling asleep on the bus, which got various reactions from the kids. (As if being on a school bus at 6:50 in the morning is normal...oh right, in Germany, it is) Ranging from shock („Was machst denn du?“) to pity („Hast du nicht wohl geschlafen?“). The strangest though was my newly found seat buddy, Pascal. Generally kids avoid sitting with him as he has a habit of hitting or kicking people, and making the bus driver upset. Being an adult (and him being only in 2nd grade) at least earns me his resepect, insofar as he doesn’t hit or kick me and somtimes even sits down when I suggest he should. Though I like to think that talking to him has won him over. Trotzdem, (German lesson for you, Trotzdem is a good way to say anyway or in any case, or various variations on that theme, i enjoy the word, in this case I would’ve used: The point is) Pascal decided to become a crusader for my sleep. If I opened my eyes, he would scowl at anyone around who happened to have said anything in the last five minutes and say „Halt die mund, Keith (Kies, as the kids often say it) schlaft.“ Or, a little nicer „LEI-SE“ (the first one is Shut up, Keith is sleeping, the second one is QUI-ET). (I pretty much spent the whole day speaking German, but that is a different story.) Then he would turn to me and say „Schlaf weiter Keith, wir sind noch nicht da.“ (Keep sleeping, we aren’t there yet, but in the imperative). Those of you that only speak English may be quite annoyed at my over abundance of German, but I am having a good German day, so feel glad for me, they only come along every so often.

2007-01-14T13:34:00.000+01:00

Road Trip Version 1

On what would have been a lazy saturday here in AL, the presence of our guest. Tim, the brother of Gary, inspired a hastily put together trip to Dresden. Dresden is a two hour drive from here, and is a city that has been on my ‚to go’ list for quite some time. Dresden is featured in Kurt Vonnegut’s most well known book: Slaughterhouse 5. Some of you may know that Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors, which is at least part of my desire to visit the city of Dresden, also it is a city pretty close to where I live. We spent the day walking around the city, seeing the former King’s Palace, and talking. We didn’t really feel like spending money, so entertainment options were limited. Dresden was a pretty cool city, though. One thing we have noticed about German cities is that they don’t seem crowded, at least not the cities here in the East. A city the size of Berlin in USA would have lots of people out and about pretty much all the time. But in Berlin there aren’t alot of people walking around, there are quite a few, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t crowded in the sense of crowded I think of New York City being crowded.
For dinner we decided to drive across the German-Czech Republic border. Going up the Czech hills surround by the haunted Czech forest, we experienced a fog so thick that you could only see three inches in front of you, just enough to stay on the road, but not nessisarly on the correct side. It was spooky. So now I have been to Germany, France, Spain and The Czech Republic. On the way back I drove for about two hours. The clever among you may be wondering, if the total drive is two hours, why I just didn’t say I drove home. The answer is simple, we got lost. Maybe it was the thrill of driving on the Autobahn, where I got to push our version of Edgar to the limits of 140 Km/h. Or perhaps the conversation I was having with Tim. Whatever the reason, I missed the sign and exit for the Berlin Autobahn, and made it about a quarter of the way to Leipzig (which is 1.5 hours from home) before I realized it. I decided to stop at a gas station and ask directions. Wanting to get the directions correct, I decided to ask if they spoke English. They didn’t and tried to explain things, but thinking I was a mere tourist they gave up and a rather attractive cashier lady pushed me towards the back to a group of younger German people. They should speak English, she told me. So I asked them, and they confirmed the bad news that the only way to Berlin was to drive all the way back to Dresden and hit the correct Autobahn. Back in the car we debated and I was finally convinced to try to pull off at the next city, and find the correct road. Gary and Tim were fairly sure that the Autobahn we needed passed through that city. Also, the slower and smaller route 101 also ran through that city and that would take us home. I pulled off and we spent a good hour navigating a giant circle through the city, which served only to make me more nervous and frustrated. Finally I decided that we should just take the Autobahn because at least we knew 100% that that would get us home. So I drove up the giangatic hill for the 4th and final time and started limping back to the Autobahn. I was tired and cranky, so Tim and I tried to talk about other things to calm down. It was dark and foggy and the cars behind me were tailgating. Just when I was starting to think things were looking up, a flash of blinding red light signaled my first German speeding ticket, courtesy of a speed camera. This was particularly upseting becuase I was driving what I consided a safe speed of 50 Km/h which in most places is considered slow. After that I decided to relenquensh driving duties to someone else and try to sleep off the pain in Edgar 2’s back seat.

2007-01-13T21:37:00.001+01:00

Ohne Furcht und Ardel

For this New Years Season I decided to spent it at a Jugend Freizeit in Berlin. This is sort of like a camp for teenagers and young adults. It cost me 50 €, but was worth every cent. (Euro 1 cent coins aren’t called pennies)

Before my arrival I had what the Germans call an Angsthase (similar, in a way, to a scaredy cat, only, as I have heard it used you say, I have an Angsthase; literally a fear bunny). I wasn’t sure what I was playing at going to a camp full of German teenage kids who I had never met and who might not even speak English, and I sure don’t speak German well enough to be a fun guy. I remember thinking I should have shaved, or maybe packed trendier clothes, or learned more German. I was nervous, and part of me just wanted to stay home. But I went, and even though the first day I was too nervous to even ask for food at the dinner table, I ended up making good friends and really enjoying myself. First I talked to the leader, Dietmar, about how I knew a little German, but that I was nervous using it. So the next meal he practically made me ask for everything, which was really quite helpful. After awhile the kids got used to me and were eager to speak a little English outside of their school lessons, so we spoke a combination of German and English together. We spent alot of time playing card games like Phase 10 (which I lost without getting mad in the least), Elfer Raus, and a new German game (to me at least) called Ohne Furcht und Ardel (Without fear or Aristocracy). At first this game seemed to complicated for me to even dream of playing it, because it was in German and difficult to explain, but then I watched the other kids playing it and translated most of the rules, and finally started playing. It is now my favorite game, and will be brought to America.
For New Years Eve, we went onto a big hill in Berlin and watched as every Berliner there launched a stash of fireworks to rival even Thunder over Louisville. It also turned out to be a little dangerous as some punk kids started throwing fire crackers at crowds of people, and as drunk people began shooting of improperly grounded bottle rockets, which shot towards crowds of people and sometimes exploded a little to close for comfort. It was an interesting experience.
I had many good conversations with Dietmar and his Dutch girlfriend, but at the end of the week I was exhausted from translating German and having to speak simple and slow English. I was also a touch dissapointed that I couldn’t speak German as well as I wanted. But I kept with me the words of wisdom from Dietmar, ‚Self pity is like peeing your pants in the winter, at first you feel nice and warm, but then it gets cold, and you smell bad’ and also, ‚Concentrate more on what you do know, than on what you wish you knew.’ Dietmar was a cool guy, as was everyone I met on the excursion. I felt like part of the group, and instead of being the annoying foreign guy, I was more like the cool foreign guy. For example, when we were playing the German version of Who wants to be a millionaire (Wer Wird Millionär?) they would pick questions for me based on things I’d told them (like that my favorite German word is Edelstein, they picked a question with Edelstein in it) or questions about America. There was also one night that we went to a German comedy routine. Most of it I didn’t understand, but he made one joke in English, and all the people in our group looked at me with a clever smirk, and a look in their eye that seemed to say, ‚Our American understood that one better than anyone else here.’

2007-01-13T21:37:00.000+01:00

Der Weihnachtsmann kommt
For Christmas I divided my time among three families here in the Altes Lager area (and I was even extended 2 extra invitations that I could not take up) The first hint that Christmas was coming up was the Diakonie Office Christmas party. This involved a nice meal, a little German speaking, The 12 Days of Christmas a la Gary, Tim and Keith (in English), and a sneaky Santa style gift exchange. Now, everytime I have done the sneaky Santa game it has been a time to give Gag gifts, so I just assumed that it was also the same here. My present was a rubber duckie key chain. As the gift exchange begain, I noticed that all the presents were in fact quite nice. This made me nervous. In the end I was given my own gift back, either as an act of mercy or belittlment, I can not be sure. But I was relieved.
Then I spent Christmas Eve with Jake and Dorothy, where we ate Christmas Tacos (and I am not complaining there, it is a rare dish in Germany, and one I enjoy) and talked about how Christmas goes down at my place. On Christmas day I went for lunch to Ina Albers’ house. Ina works sometimes at the office in Altes Lager, and is one of the people I talk to on a fairly regular basis. I went there for lunch, and we had Duck, Goose and potatoes made in every form imaginable. It was a good lunch. Then we went on a walk which went on for about 4 hours. Then I had a long conversation with Ina’s husband, who happens to speak english very well. We had a good conversation about life, which is something I hadn’t really discussed with a German before, so it was a fun conversation. After that I played Fußball with the Albers’ son and I started practicing my German with him. Kids I can usually understand no problem (their son is probably about 4 or 5). We got through a couple of general comments, and then he asked me if I was leaving yet, but I think with the air of ‚Do you have to go home soon?’ I tried to ask him if he wanted me to leave now, but I couldn’t figure out how to ask the right way, and after my third try he said ‚Ich verstehe nicht, dein Deutsch ist anders als mein.’ (I don’t understand, your German is different than mine.) It was a pretty cute thing to say. Then I drove home (around 8:30) and called my family, which was nice as I got to talk to not only my parents but also my brothers.
The day after Christmas (which here is a holiday, called the 2nd Christmas Day) I spent with Familie Förster, who I lived with for a week upon arrival to Germany. Keeping in tradition, I arrived a good deal late. I was under the impression that it wasn’t going to be anything special, but it turned out to be a dinner with the whole family. But I wasn’t late on purpose, my laptop, which served also as a clock, happened to break that day (which stinks), so I wasn’t really sure about what time it was. (The next day I borrowed a clock from my buddy Walde, which I still use, he said I could keep it.) It was also a good time, and we talked for awhile in German, which was difficult (I attempted deep conversation about how work was going) but it is always nice to spend time with the Försters. (We affectionatly refer to Frau Förster as Mom and she calls us her Children.) It was fun.

2007-01-13T21:36:00.000+01:00

December
Now on to more exciting things. I’ll start in Decemeber. (And just to impress you (all) I will give you that in German: Ich fange in Dezember an.) On a sliding scale, December is the best month to exist in Germany. I may be comparing it to the bitter wind, depressingly cloudy skies (which were more novel in November, now I am used to them) and generally lack of Lustigkeit (which translates to happiness, but I enjoy the German word) of November, but still. December begins with Advent, which people here enjoy explaining as though it is a novel idea to me (but it exsists in Churchs in the USA). Though they do have some right to explain its novelty here, becuase here it is not just a religious thing, but a genuine holiday season. It is a buildup to Christmas, and is celebrated with Weihnachtsmarkts (Christmas Markets) in every town and village. Each town is under the impression that it has the best Christmas Market in all of Brandenburg, but each Market ranges from being a couple of food tents and a fire pit, to something like a Fair with rides, many stands and entertainment. Rumor has it that Munich has the best Weihnachtsmarkts in all of Germany, but I never saw it with my own eyes. Berlin had a Market on just about every corner. The only downside about them is that even in the middle of January, they are still around, and they mainly serve to take up space on the sidewalk and slow down the people traffic (though this only applies in Berlin as far as I know.)
December was also marked with the arrival of Gary’s brother, Tim. It was good to have someone else our age around, and Tim was also alot of fun, and we had alot of good conversations. Having guests is both good and bad, on the one hand it is nice to have someone else to come up with ideas for something to do, but on the other, they often keep you from doing important tasks. But they often inspire the going on of trips and the like, which you will see. We took many trips into Berlin, learned the Berlin subway system, and wrote a few songs. It was fun to have company, meet someone new, and get a little spiritual encouragement, but, alas, Tim has weg gehen. (He went back to Norway, where he is doing a study abroad program).

2007-01-13T21:33:00.000+01:00

Halbjahre Spiegel

I have now survived in Germany for almost 6 months. I have to say that living here has gotten normal. I have learned to appreciate little things, like the ability to understand about 90% of what the kids say to me, and being to ask them little questions. Some days I can even understand the TV. I would say the hardest part is the alphabet. I have come to appreciate the shows on MTV, because here they are broadcast with German subtitles, so the German version of me complains about the times that MTV plays music, while the American version complains when it plays shows. Today I write to you through the pains of a headache, stomach ache and general ache that I can only hope isn’t the sign of sickness. Feeling sick has a way of making you miss childhood, or home. Not that I want to go home, I still have much to learn, and still need to master German. If I can keep learning at the same pace I will know twice as much German as I know now when I step off the plane onto American (Canadian American) soil. It is finnally getting cold here in Altes Lager, something I am promised is an oddity (usually it is freezing and snowing like crazy, I am told, but most likely with egzageration. [I have forgotten how to spell that word completely...]) I have decided to attempt a German study time every day from now on, to learn Grammar and more words. A certain friend from Alaska, (mhem, Katie) might enjoy the fact that the Sun comes up at about 9AM and is in the process of setting around 2PM. And even when it is out, the weather is mostly cloudy. Looking back, though, the past 5.6 months have flown by, and January is almost over. At this point last year I was picking up an application for the local YMCA to be a lifeguard. I can only hope, if not a touch half-heartedly, that the time doesn’t go by as quickly in this last half of my German adventure. Though I do look foward to seeing good friends once again, I don’t look foward to leaving the ones I have made here behind.

2007-01-11T21:18:00.000+01:00

A blog with a photo?!

Here I am teaching the English to my most hyper class...word...more on that later.

2007-01-10T18:27:00.000+01:00

To all my loyal blog readers,

Fear not, I live. Time contrants, internet time limits, trips to Berlin and the Czech Republic have been taking up my free time, and also need to be reported on, so soon I will post stories on all of these subjects, and more.

2006-12-13T19:23:00.001+01:00

As you read this, know that I am speaking to you from the future. As I write this it is 12:20PM, I have already worked for 6 hours, and by EST it is 6:20AM. By all means I do apologize for the long wait you have endured. It isn’t that there has been nothing to report, but more that I haven’t really made time to write down anything of significance these days. My time is scattered between sleep, playing games, watching the occasional movie, and reading hundreds of pages about science, Africa, the Earth, and, of course, Harry Potter. Much has happened since you have last read of my adventures. I have had bad days; my hair has been pulled, kids have ignored or even openly defied me, I have felt stupid, and inadequate, I have felt sick, tired and quite ready to give up at times. I’ve had good days; kids have been so excited by my presence that it has taken a whole ten minutes to get them to sit still, I haven developed friendships, felt smart and useful, celebrated thanksgiving and even made plans about my future (though we will see how long term those plans end up being.) All in all an interesting few weeks, that didn’t pass by at all slowly, but looking back they seem to have happened an eternity ago.

2006-12-13T19:23:00.000+01:00

Episode 1: The One Where I Kind Of Thought About Putting My Foot In My Mouth, Sort Of, I Guess

Of all the times these past couple of weeks that I have said: “That is going in my blog,” and, yes, I actually have said that a few times now, this is the most memorable time. It was quite a small event really. It was just after Wednesday night Club, which is the church group for kids around 12ish. I work with the Club group every week, though I am not always extremely helpful due to my lack of German skills. My biggest addition to the group is that I usually hang out with the kids after the program ends, before they want to leave. It usually involves playing Fußball. This particular Wednesday was no different, me against two or three of the kids. Most of the time I spend trying to convince the kids to play “Ohne drinnen,” which for any future Trainee potentials, is an important phrase for Fußball, meaning “without spinning.”
The first strange occurrence was the discovery of the church’s drum set, which is in a storage room. This was, however, a predictable discovery seeing as we had just moved the Fussball table into the storage room. Now none of the kids involved was a natural percussionist (too bad George Michael wasn’t there), so I can’t really say that they played the drums, but they did have a bit of fun hitting them and producing loud noises. I tried to inform them of the joys of tempo and rhythm, but I was sort changed on German words about music. Plus they seemed to have more fun being loud. Finally Gary showed up and together we got at least a couple of them back to Fussball for at least a few seconds, but it was hard with the constant, yet still inconsistent cymbal crashes.
By some miracle of science we were able to convince them that playing with a rubber ball was more fun than making noise. This, however, created another problem; they started chucking the ball around inside the building. Being that this wasn’t in the church proper, but just in a building connected with it, it wasn’t so bad, but there were still windows to consider. I mentioned that the kids should play outside, and finally convinced them on the stipulation that I would join them.
It was then that I made a few crucial mistakes. Well, one mistake and one confusion, really. The mistake was to pause and attempt to load a few things into the church’s dishwasher. This made one of the girls involved become a bit impatient, as girls can sometimes become, which lead to a barrage of questions, in German, about why I wasn’t coming outside. Before I could answer that one, she began another line of questioning: “Bin ich so schlimm?” she asked. I didn’t really get what she meant; schlimm translates to ‘bad.’ I searched for a bit of clarity, “Was ist schlimm?” I asked, what is bad. That didn’t help; I was still confused thinking maybe she thought she was bad at Fussball, or that the ball was bad. I wasn’t sure, so I just kept asking and finally realized she was asking if she was bad. As I do in situations where I’ve made an obvious mistake, I laughed. “Oh, you mean are you bad,” I said, laughing, which I guess she took as an answer. She took offense, retaliating by calling me “Du grosse Affe” (A big monkey). I should point out that this is a place where kids regularly flick each other off, call people schiesse, and generally throw around what we would call cuss words like they were pennies. That is to say that this whole time I haven’t once heard a kid refer to anyone as an Affe, which is of course a typical childish insult here in Germany. It was then that I realized that, perhaps, her question may have translated into the following: “Am I that ugly?” Oops…

2006-12-13T19:22:00.000+01:00

Episode 2: Schlecten Tagesbuch Tagen

So if you just read Episode one, then I can give you a little German lesson. Well, okay it isn’t so much a lesson as a translation. This episode is titled: Bad Diary Days. So now you know two German words for bad. Though it seems, in most situations that schlimm is a bit stronger, but I could, of course, be wrong. I guess that isn’t really the point.
I remember one particular day last week being singularly bad. (Once you get over how clever that sentence is you can continue…go ahead and take a minute.) I was tired, and cranky, and most likely a sixth grader made fun of me. (Which they, of late, have stopped doing.) I can’t remember specifics because it was one of those days you just sort of block out of history. Well, I do remember there was no coffee. I also remember that while I was waiting for the bus some kids stole my Mütze (which in English is known as: A cap, a stocking cap, a beanie, a skullcap, or a toboggan), which happens pretty much everyday, but it just made things worse. Then, if the day followed suit with most other days, a kid jumped on, or punched or kicked me. Maybe even all at once. Such is the hazard of raus blieben (staying outside). At any moment outside the walls of the school I am no longer considered in any way a teacher, and really at any moment inside the walls I am only ¼ teacher and ¾ student.
I was at a low point. I remember feeling kind of stupid and pointless. Here I was, working at a school full of kids who didn’t even listen to me, and who might just be better off without me. Negative thoughts abounded. That is how the bus found me. I found a seat next to one of my favorites (who I internally refer to as ‘Little Rachel’ after a good friend I had in college, Rachel Wingo) whose name is Alica (pronounce Alisa). We started talking, in German. It was a conversation limited by both my German, and the fact that she is in 2nd grade. She told me about how one of my other favorites, Lukas, who is in her class, was always asking when I was coming to teach English. It seems he was a big fan of mine. (One of the oddest things is that the class he is in is my most difficult, yet it contains a lot of the kids I refer to as favorites…) Just before her stop, Alica also said: “Ich will nicht aussteigen,” (I don’t want to get off the bus). In other words she was a fan of mine as well. It was a great reminder of my importance here, reminders like that usually happen when I start feeling bad. Every day since then Alica has asked me to sit with her on the bus, but so far the buses have been too full to choose seats.

2006-12-13T19:21:00.000+01:00

Episode 3: The One Where We Cooked Our Goose

For the turkey day festivities I decided, after much internal debate, to make the journey to Karlsruhe in the west of Deutschland to join a few fellow Intermennonites (You should look into doing Intermenno, it is a great program…) for a celebration.
I first traveled to Giessen, which turned out to be a pretty decently sized city, where I hung out with Mattias, we had a jam session with guitar and djimbé which was a lot of fun. We stayed up pretty late, even when compared to my former 2AM standard, (well, I think we ended up going to bed about 3AM…) but really late compared to my new 10-11PM standard. We planned to sleep in until 11AM, but I woke up about 8AM and by 9AM I couldn’t even lay around anymore.
We walked to the Lidl across the street and got some eggs, bread and bacon. Well, it wasn’t bacon so much as two chunks of bacon looking meat. I figured we could slice them down and make them into at least something baconesque. No dice. Es geht nicht. Eventually I gave up and threw one of the whole chunks on the pan. It didn’t taste the best really, so it was a bad idea. We also made some eggs in a basket, which were quite good. Then we headed off in the direction of Karlsruhe. It was a decent road trip, complete with GPS (The GPS was at best a genius and at worst great for making circles). We had a good conversation and stopped in Wintersheim to pick up Josh and tour the Winery (home of my top secret Wine-Man Wine-cellar). The dogs at that place are evil geniuses, or at least bullies. They can punch pretty hard when they feel like it too.
Then we jumped in the van and headed to Karlsruhe. We got to our destination and found a playground but none of our peoples. I tried out the slide. It worked, and also happened to be wet. Hurrah. (Sarcasm). After we were found, we went on a shopping trip that made up in sheer determination and spontaneity what it was lacking in organization. We discussed the prospect of a proper Thanksgiving meal, traditionally a turkey. Now, they have turkeys in Germany, but they are quite small to be trusted. In Giessen, Mattias and I thought it would be cool to make a duck for the occasion. In the end we decided on a Goose, which is mentioned in Sherlock Holmes as being a traditional Christmasy type dish. It turned out to be a good meal, though it was off to a slow start when we got up at 9 to start cooking it, which really involved looking on the internet for a recipe for a good hour before finally deciding on the first one we found. Also included in the meal were mashed potatoes, corn and sweet potatoes. It was a good meal and great times. Then John, Josh, Mattias and I woke up at 6AM and crammed into a van for the beginning of my long journey home.

2006-12-13T19:18:00.000+01:00

Episode 4: Hilfe, Die Herdmanns Kommen

Recently Gary and I were given free tickets to a play that one of our adult English students was featured in. The tickets were a gift given to us as payment for food we made for our English class to help along our lesson on “Food.” It also worked out well as a sort of Christmas/end of the year party. It turned out well. December in Germany is a busy month. We have had more than one thing to do each weekend this month, and there have only been two. Advent is an important time here, and they celebrate each Advent week. So on the night of the play, not only was the church doing something, there was also a celebration in Graefendorf, where my former host family lives. We already were committed to the church function, which was fun, but it would’ve been interesting to see the festivities. That night, however, we went to the play, and sat next to our good friends the Familie Hanneman. The play was based on the book, ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,’ which I have actually read. The most amazing part of the play was that I actually understood what was going on, and most of what as being said, even though it was in German. I am starting to understand the TV and everything. Well most of the time at least. It was a good play, our student, who is also the Deputy Mayor of Nidergoersdorf (where we live), was dressed as a punk teenage kid, and it was pretty hilarious. It still takes a lot of work and concentration to understand things, but it is getting better. The most memorable part of the whole play was when one of the characters shouted out “BATMAN” and everyone started dancing to the beat of a strobe light. The kids at school like to quote that part, and then get excited when I not only have seen the play, but that I also know who Batman is.

2006-11-19T18:22:00.000+01:00

Abenteuerlich Reise Teil 1: The Rain in Spain

Today I decided to go for a walk, but halfway through it started to rain. I elected to head back, thinking: ‚Gee, I wish I had my raincoat...oh yeah that Irish girl lost it.’ Now, in case you’re scratching your head wondering: ‚Which Irish girl is he refering to?’ Don’t worry, you’re intitled. The story begins, as you might have guessed, with rain.
I remember some sort of rhyme involving the rain in Spain, and I can vouch for it, they aren’t kidding. Despitie our travel guide’s assurances that it doesn’t rain that often in Madrid, it was raining when we got there. (Though in the guide’s defense, it did say that if it did rain, it would be in November.) I remember at first we were mocking the whole ordeal: ‚You call this rain, Madrid?’ we said, or, ‚Look at all these people with their big raincoats, it’s hardly even sprinkling.’ We said these things, and we meant them, it was hardly sprinkling after all. By the second day my shoes were two shades darker and water logged, ever step bringing a small fountain of water to my dampened feet. We spent the day in a museum, trying to figure out other people’s art. That night we had decided to hit the club scene, which I am not big on, but was told by pretty much every source (guide book and all) that Madrid was most famous, world famous in fact, for its’ night life. And, honestly, who could pass that up?
Our method for finding the best club was asking the people staying in our hostel, which is how we met them. We found three Irish girls and one Argentenian to accompany us to some of the world’s greatest clubs. We hit the rain soaked streets, but it didn’t matter, back then I still had my raincoat. Fifteen minutes toward the first club and one of the Irish girls, called Rachel, begain to complain about her lack of rain gear. Being a gentleman, I insisted that she take my rain coat. Begrudgingly, she took me up on my offer, and I was later told it was a nice offer indeed.
Around 3AM, our group was separated, John, the Argentinian and I decided to head home, seeing as we were all soaked to our skin, and it was still pouring. We eventually found the hostel, but didn’t find the Irish girls until the next day. The next morning, or more aptly, the next day around 1PM, the Irish girls were hurredly packing after being kicked out of the hostel a mere 3 hours after they were supposed to have checked out. Rachel found me in the common room and broke the bad news. My rain coat was lost, possibly for ever. She felt bad even after I assured her it was no big deal...three times. She finally fit in one last apology just before a hurried goodbye moments before they all got the boot.
Still, after all this time, I didn’t miss my rain coat until today...

2006-11-15T20:43:00.000+01:00

Mich werde einem Tag hübsch sprechen

An important lesson I am learning here, is the way it feels when you are putting alot of effort into learning another language, and then someone makes fun of you, or mocks you. It doesnt even have to be anyone important, maybe just some kid in the 6th grade. Sixth graders are known for general brutality with words. In German there are alot of words that take great effort to say, and two particular verbs, Machen and Magen, which mean to do and to enjoy, which are a little hard to distingush when I say them. A sixth grader caught privy to this and decided to raz me about it. Now I’m not really one to take a joke to hardly, but I don’t know it just is abrasive when you are trying your best and it isn’t good enough, or someone makes fun of your best. It just left me with this feeling of belittlment. It is a good lesson to learn, but a tough one to learn at the same time. Coming through this I definitely understand the perils and hardships of learning a new language, and the stressful alone feeling you get when it is imperative that you learn a new language in order to properly communitcate. Not that I was ever narrow minded on that issue, but I have to say, I think my mind is becoming ever wider.
Another thing I am doing is reading The Posionwood Bible, and I just find myself wishing the Preacher character would be more understanding. But it is a really good book.
I also think I am getting a cold. Being medically minded, I logically have thought about my symptoms and am quite sure I have a slight fever, throat ache, and congestion. I am tacking vitamins, and am supposed to gargle salt water. If I am still feeling the same by saturday I am going to the doctor, mostly becuase I have good health insurance. And because someone would make me go to the doctor around here anyway. But don’t worry, I should pull out A-Okay, but encourageing notes/letters/packages are welcome all the same.

2006-11-13T20:50:00.000+01:00

A Case of The Mondays?

So today I was all alone with the Third grade. I wish I could say it went well, or that it was easy, but it wasn’t. Not because of my limited German vocabuarly, I found I had enough words to get my point across, but because the kids just don’t feel the need to listen to me. Not unless I yell, which I had to do several times. But yelling in German isn’t the same really, it’s not so much about volume, but more about speed. You really have to know what you’re about to say, and you have to say it fast. Of course this was the class where one of the girls glued hair from her head to her chin, so what did I expect. Now one oddity about it all was the fact that none of the kids had paper. I asked them to get a sheet of paper, and they all gave the same excuse: We left our English folder at home. I don’t know if they just had some stigma about using paper from another folder during English class, or what, but I ended up haveing to pretty much order some kids to share a peice of paper, and passing out a few sheets. It was crazy. On the other hand my one real English lesson of the day went really well. It was with one of my favorite classes, the 2nd Grade B, they are pretty excited about English, and enjoy singing. Today we did parts of the body and sang Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes, which based on their guesses as to what feet and legs were they had sung before. I’m not sure if it is supposed to go to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down, but it did in this case. Days like this I feel good about my German skills, but bad about my child management skills. But German schools are different, and the kids want to be my friends and not particularly my students. So that adds to the difficulty.
In other, more unfortunate news, I believe I am getting sick. Or rather I fear that I am. My throat is a bit sore as I write this, and I feel tired and a bit sore, especially my head. The sore throat may be from talking loudly at the kids, but I am not sure.
That just goes to show you....

2006-11-11T19:19:00.000+01:00

Sankt Martin's Tag

So I realize I should be writing about my vacation, but I’ll have to get to that later. It was alot of fun though, and I met some new people. But anyway, it’s St. Martin’s day in Germany which is really a good excuse to carry around lanterns and sing a song about it. It goes like this: Laterne, Laterne, Sun und Mond und Sterne. Which means: Lantern, lantern, son and moon and stars. Yeah, doesn’t rhyme in English. St. Martin was apparently this soldier who gave his coat to a homeless man, who turned out (so the story goes) to be Jesus. Though I wager it’s meant a bit more figuratively. The way Gary and I celebrated was with the curch and the kids. The church got the kids together and we made lanterns, (mine is the most awesome lantern ever made...) then we lit the candles and went on a parade singing the lantern song. Well, attempting to sing it. I don’t know the whole thing. It was pretty fun, and the kids are getting used to me, and I am getting used to having to only talk to them in German, or at least mostly in German.

This morning we also did our Saturday Bible School type thing. I got to drive the big van, which is a diesel and a stickshift. Not too hard, but a little nervewracking at first. But really it was a fun day, good old Saint Martin could teach us alot, I mean it’s hard to give up your jacket when it is cold outside.

2006-11-06T22:21:00.000+01:00

I think I'm turning European

Naw, not really. However I did just notice today, after spending many hours on public transportation lugging luggage (good word choice? as always) around by my lonesome. It afforded me alot of time to think. At first I thought about life and important things, like not being sad that my vacation is over, though I was, but I was also happy in that weird way you feel happy to not be wandering anyway. I thought about being happy to come home to Berlin, well Altes Lager, and how I do sort of miss some of the kids and the people. But then I realized that the clothes I am wearing are European. Not a big deal, huh. Well not really but sometimes I like symbols. Right now I have my German Levi's that I was given from a friend, and my Euro Adidas shoes. Top it all off with my fancy Euro winter jacket and I'm just one of those crazy Germans you keep hearing about, I even throw in a bit of Deutsch to seal the deal (but don't expect it to be quick or always on topic, but that is something you deal with from me in English sometimes too).

That said, life is good at the moment (though I miss Arrested Development) Even if it is winter and gets dark at 5PM.

2006-10-24T19:47:00.000+02:00

Ich bin ein Englisch Lehrer, so heißt es jedenfalls

So on a short walk was pretty much the only event for the day. Unless, of course, you count the few hours I spent staring out the window at a tree blowing in the wind. I like to think it was Artsy, but based on the look I would most likely see on your face after owning up to my tree watching I would probably guess you dont agree. You'll change your tune when everyone's doing it. Anyway, so we started this walk and got to the church and had just decided to walk around the town proper, when we heard a loud whistle. This was proceeded by the shouted words: 'I LOVE YOU' which was chanted, of course, by three teenage German girls. Though it was nice to hear that we were loved, the obvious response from us English teacher types is: 'It's WE, We love you, it's more than one' followed most likely with the same thing in German, just in case. They kept it up until we were out of sight, stubbornly sticking with I instead of We. At least I know what Bill from Tokio Hotel feels like (when he's surrounded by teenage boys..., sorry, inside joke again, but this time from Altes Lager)
In other news I am starting to replace certain English words with German ones. And sometimes I find myself pronouncing 'w' like 'v.' ´Most notibly I almost typed Wohnung instead of Apartment. I also have a habit of wanting to capitalize all Nouns.

2006-10-23T22:02:00.000+02:00

An Immortal Day In History, oder Ein besonders Tag

To Ben Friesen

So nevermind the fact that it's Monday, or that, of course the day after I walk to buy a winter jacket it decides to get warm all the sudden. Nevermind that I got to wake up at 6AM after a few short days of sleeping in. Forget that just as I got my hopes up for a nice cup of coffee I found out there was no coffee. All that is in the past.
No, friends, today was indeed a special day. Not for a good reason like work being particularly good, though it wasn't particularly bad. Not because we narrowly escape killing a poor, helpless deer (see Canadian Boys Blog for details), though it is rather special to see wildlife of any kind here. No, it was something much simpler than that. It was something so simple that the only way to honor it is by mortally Bloggerizing it for a short (maybe week long) span of glory.

I had a friend last year named Ben Friesen, now, if your reading Ben, I have taken your advice. He told me that when I win, I need to gloat more. So, here it is. I WON SIEDLER! I BEAT YOU GARY, DOROTHY AND JAKE HAHAHAHAH.....HAHAHAHAH...okay...that is enough. Now important to know is that I lose most of the time, and may never win again.

But really, it was a fun Monday afternoon, attached to a free meal and including Siedler Von Catan, which we haven't played in awhile, so it was nice to hang out and play a nice game with good friends. Then we taught English to Adults...also pretty fun. So maybe Mondays aren't so bad after all.

2006-10-22T22:19:00.000+02:00

A Walk not To Remember

So if anyone has been worried about me getting hypothemia, you can put your mind at ease. I have aquired a 'most premium' winter Jacke. I always feel weird calling them that, sounds childish, but that's what they call them. Well that or a Mantle, but I usually forget to use that one and end up saying Jacke anyway, I don't mind sounding like a kid sometimes. Which is good because most times I try to speak German I end up sounding like a 3 year old.
Anyway, so yesterday we decided to go out to Jüterbog to get me a jacke. Since we had all day, we decided to walk out there. Well we were going to bike, but one of our bikes has a perpetual flat tire I need to get fixed. So we set off, and the journey there wasn't bad. But of course we got there when most of the stores were closed...dang half day saturdays!! Luckily the store I was hoping to go to was open, and I found a nice brown jacke that'll keep me nice and warm in the cold cold cold December in Deutschland. So the walk back seemed to take forever. It just kept going and going, until finally a good 30 minutes walk from home the pastor's wife, Dorothy, happened to drive by and offer us a ride. It ranks in with one of my top 5 sits of all time.
Then, upon arrival to our Flat, we found a gangle of people stationed out front, gathered around a Grill. And they happened to all be people we knew from work, in fact, one was my boss Herr Lehman. (Who I can use the Du form with, even though I still call him Herr Lehman.) They all jumped at the chance to invite us for free food. So I stayed and enjoyed some Bratwurst and good German conversation, though I still have a little trouble saying everything I would like to. But everyone there was good people, and it made for a most enjoyable Saturday evening. It is also crazy to think that just a month a go I would have had no clue what anyone was saying, and now, I pretty much understood everything with a bit of effort. Still translating to English, but I hope to get over that soon. But, so far, life is good.

2006-10-21T00:19:00.001+02:00

A Long Awaited Quote

So I meant to write more about that quote, but it's been busy here. Well not busy, but I've been tired and not really in the writing mood. Just in the sitting and thinking about writing mood. Tommorow I get to sleep in, which is good. Other than that not much to report, except that I'm currently mad at tree stumps. I was riding (driving?) my bike to the store and I decided to take the 'secret path' there, but not the one by the train tracks, the other one. I was preoccupied thinking about something deep and meaningful, like what I wanted to make for dinner, or ways the meaning of life could really be 42 when I saw a tree stump. Luckily I had just enough time to swerve my front tire out of the way, unfortunatly over correcting and swinging the back wheel dead center of the stump. I remember falling down and being angry about my thought process being ruined. Stupid tree stump. What kind of a jerk cuts a tree down anyway. I guess I should take a little consolation in that, had the tree been there, it would've been a bit more embarassing. Upond arrival to the parking lot of the store, I'm pretty sure some random lady kind of muttered to me complaintively about me not shaking her hand, but she could very well have been talking to herself, I was a bit self-aware at the time seeing as I had just flipped my bike over in full view of the parking lot.

The quote from Henning Mankell was this: ' ''There's all sorts of things you're not supposed to do,'' said The Old Bricklayer ''you're not supposed to wear odd shoes, you're not supposed to live in an old smithy, you're not supposed to have hens in your house. No doubt you're not supposed to make changes in books, either. Even still, I do all that, I'm not doing anybody any harm.'' '

I dont know why it struck me as profound, but it did. I guess it is just talking about things that other people tell you you shouldn't do, even if you have a good reason. It's more about societal rules and rule you should follow to fit in, but the Old Bricklayer doesn't follow them when they don't make him happy, or when he has a better way to do things. I don't know, it just made me think.

2006-10-21T00:19:00.000+02:00

2006-10-18T19:18:00.000+02:00

Bad Habits of the Sun

So lately it has been getting colder here, and I still haven't bought a winter coat. I always have intentions to do so, but things get in the way, like laziness. Sometimes I feel kind of lazy, but lately I don't blame myself, I blame the Sun. Cruel of me, perhaps, to blame something that cannot defind itself, but allow me at least some explaination. I wake up every day before the Sun does, and every night I stay up later than it does, so I figure I can't be being lazy if I am beating the sun to breakfast while going to bed later. Plus I have always felt a bit solar powered, like the sun gives me energy. Especially in the winter, when it is cold and you get a nice ray of warm sun on your face, I don't know, it just makes you feel good. Full of life and vigor and all that.

Like I said, it is getting colder here, but it is still novel coldness and hasn't yet gotten mundane or monotonous. And it isn't all bad for the sun to get up late, because the past two days it has still been a little dark when I get to school. So I get a cup of coffee and start readying my book and just feel like it is going to be a great day. Today I taught my hardest class. They have a hard time remembering the words and I have a hard time not blaming myself for it. Maybe I'm not making it fun enough, I worry about it. But tommorow is my favorite class (1st Grade), they are always excited and usually remember things pretty well, but tommorow I am doing the weather with them, a hard subject, so we will see.
I read a good quote in my book today, and it just made me think about life and the way we do things and all that. It was this:
'''You're probably not supposed to do alot of things,'' said The Old Bricklayer, ''not supposed to wear funny boots, or keep chickens indoors,....well I will have to look it up. But it made me think...more about it later.

2006-10-16T20:49:00.000+02:00

A Case Of the Mondays ??

So today has been one of the oddest I've experienced thus far, perhaps in my life. No particular reason, just I've felt weird all day, can't put my finger on it. I know I feel generally tired, and I know that I spent a majority of my day in my room alone, and I know I ate some over greasy 'Hähnchen Curry' which was in no stretch of the imagination spicy in any way, shape, or form. I also know that after forgetting to plan my lesson I gave one of the best English lessons to date, a stroke of luck really. But everything has just felt odd since I went to bed last night. For starters I tossed and turned for a good three hours, after going to bed at 11:30. The sleep I did get was full of oddly realistic dreams, but I don't remember much about them except for there being a rock in one of them...a big rock.

All that aside it was a pretty good Monday. The bus rides were a bit noisey but my acheing head survived them. I got to school in time to realize that today I did have to teach a class by myself (I had previously assured myself that Monday's were the days I was free), so I frantically looked for something to teach. Inspiration came at the last moment, litereally. I was in front of the kids and halfway through reviewing Animals. I taught about 'My Room' and it went off without a hitch, in fact it went of with a counter hitch, being that the teacher helped me out by letting me write the words out on the board (something previously discouraged of me by other teachers) hopefully it will help the kids memorize the words better. Then we sang Old MacDonald.
After that peice of glory I made my way to the Lerherzimmer (teacher's lounge) where I found a spread of free food which could only mean it was someone's birthday. So free lunch. Another good suprise was that one of the teachers had bought me a present over the break: A book by her favorite author. I started it today, and it is about the cold, and there is a rock in it, a big rock. Weird huh. At first I thought it was going to be a poorly writen book, but then I found out it was originally written in Swedish, so I realized some of it wouldn't translate properly. So it just earned alot of cool points for being from a country I would like to visit. Plus it was a present. It was nice to feel appriciated and accepted, so I tried to talk to her in German, it went allright because she knew what I was trying to say, and helped me along.

Yesterday was also an interesting day. We met a Canadian couple at church. They gave us their contact info in case we ever wanted to Mennonite our way through Canada. They were nice and quite talkative if you got them going. And we were pretty sure they knew Pennsylvania Dutch. Then we said goodbye to the folks from Espelkamp. In the afternoon we went for Kaffee und Kuchen to Ina's. Ina is one of our bosses, well so to speak, well she at least works with the Diakonie and we talk to her somewhat regurlarly. So we met her family, and then went on a walk where we saw Wild Boars and Osteriches. Okay so it was an Osterich farm, but still pretty cool, and good practice in speaking German. One of the Ostriches, though, let out a bucket of relevation right in front of us, which was not the best sight to ever blind my eyes.

2006-10-15T20:03:00.000+02:00

New Friends and Bad Trends

So, we have a lot of catching up to do here. I’ll try to be brief. This week the church had an Erdankenfest/Oktoberfest celebration. I didn’t really do much during that because I was working the Hort, but I helped with dishes and hung out with the youth a bit. Gary and I are starting to get to know them (and German) a bit better, so it is fun to hang out with them. Another exciting thing this week was the presence of guests from Espelkamp, a city about four hours west of here. There was a pastor and two guys about the same age as us. At first I didn’t spend much time with them, I was working during the day, and not confident in my German skills. As the week wore on I started seeing them more. But it wasn’t until Friday that I really started talking to them. It happened thusly:

(You love me cause I used that word, I can tell.) Friday we had an adventure with the youth group to the Kristalbad, which was way the hay out near Poland (or so it seemed). Originally we weren’t really up for the trip, it was Friday and I was feeling more like bumming around. Gary and I were hanging out in his room pondering dinner when Johann, our neighbour and the youth group leader knocked on the door needing a van driver. I haven’t completed the van driving training session; I blame my fear of driving big vehicles and manual transmissions, so Gary was the only person who could fill the role. I decided to come with, but neglected to bring swimwear. The drive took a good while, and was punctuated often by the teenage girls in the back of the van giggling like teenage girls so often do. This habit of theirs is an annoyance to Gary, and I can see why, but it doesn’t bother me mostly because I never listen to what girls say anyway (That one’s for the LUC, and is an inside joke, so imagine us all in The Convent laughing our heads off and alienating you, bet you wish you lived with us now ; ) …[that was a wink]) We finally reached the pool, and let me tell you, German pools are where it’s at: no annoying lifeguards, wave pools, waterslides, hot tubs, Jacuzzis, the works, and this one even had a salt water pool (not sure what the point of it was, but I used it anyway.) Much better than the square and sometimes L shaped pools of the States. Johann bought us swim passes before he found out we had no swimwear, so we had to at least go to the pool. It was then that one of the youth offered me his extra swimwear: A Speedo, and a rather small one at that. I took the proffered wares but wasn’t sure I would sink that low. I held out for as long as possible and finally figured, when in Germany, well, don’t worry about it, after a year the people that judged me will be laughing their heads off, but not loud enough that I could hear them from the States. Long story short I did what every USAnian has solemnly sworn never to do unless swimming professionally, I entered the pool in a Speedo. They are not comfortable. But I got to enjoy an awesome water slide, so it’s a trade off.
At the pool I was able to talk to one of the guys from Espelkamp. It started off with me just asking the simple questions I’ve been forced to repeat 100 thousand times during my German lessons: ‘Was ist deine beruf?’, ‘Wo wohnst du?’ (What’s your job, Where do you live) Simple stuff, but then as it got more complex I was eventually forced into the ‘Deutsch ist eine schwer sprache’ conversation (German is hard). It’s a true enough point, but it makes me sad to go there, because I had hoped to know German well enough by now. Then he informed me of the presence of the water slides. I think in English the friendship may have been forged of sterner stuff, like his training to being a youth pastor, and my thoughts of doing that as a vocation as well, but this was in German, so it would have to be the water slides, they were something I could talk about.
Later, on Saturday, we all hung out with the youth group. It was fun and I even randomly made it into one of the skits the youth group did. We collectively poked fun at the language barrier between us and tried to play UNO, but it didn’t work very well. Then there was a little program, with skits from the youth group. One was about gambling and how it’s not good to do. That’s the one I was in; I played Nervous Gambler Number 2. Though I auditioned for Nervous Gambler Number 1, it was still an honour to be included. I had one line it was: ‘Zwanstig Euro.’ (Twenty Euro). I was flawless. After that we drank coffee and ate cake. Then the youth left and we had a jam session/Hymn Sing. It was fun, but we stayed up too late.
The next morning Gary and I had our every second Saturday religious style English lesson, and the guys from Espelkamp came along. Christian, the guy who showed me the water slides, came with me to Niedergörsdorf. While we waited on the kids to come we talked about things and translated some German kid’s songs into English. Then we decided to keep in touch via Email and that Gary and I should visit Espelkamp some weekend. Thus I made my first German friend in the same age bracket as me! (awesome sound effect of something good happening) And that, my friends, is that.

2006-10-07T15:27:00.000+02:00

Prolouge

Perhaps, dear reader, you are upset about the time period between my last blog and this one. Or it is quite possible you don’t mind, but some explanation is due and necessary really. So the first two days of this week were days off, national holidays in Germany. Well the 3rd was Reunification Day and I don’t know what Monday was, but I wasn’t complaining. It was the most consecutive days that I could sleep past 6AM that I’ve had since my arrival. Now, you may be thinking to yourself something to the effect of ‘It only makes sense that he should write more when he has more free time.’ I assure you that that is not the case. Indeed, more free time is never bad, but I spent that free time reading or thinking or sleeping. I did some laundry and some dishes. I checked my email, but I didn’t feel like writing. The rest of the week just slipped right by due to stress. I have been planning a vacation, and found out after plans were made and tickets purchased that my boss had turned down my vacation days. I was upset and forced to argue in German for my cause. Eventually I was able to get the days off for a one time thing, apparently future days off must be taking during school breaks. The weirdest part was after finally meeting with my boss (he’s at the top of a somewhat lengthy chain of command, so it was my last resort) and telling him, he just sort of complied and then told me that my German is getting a lot better. Then we laughed. It was weird after being annoyed by him and thinking he was being unfair for so long to finally realize that he was a person and that he cared about me. And so we just had this moment that was like a normal, we’re just hanging out, moment. It was pretty cool, and I was relieved that I was good to go on the vacation I’ve been planning and looking forward to for a long time.

Okay, on to more real things.

2006-10-07T15:26:00.000+02:00

Black & White

So my two days off were a sort of perfect example of Yin and Yang, or Black and White or Feng Shui or anything else that’s equal and opposite. Oh right, I’m a scientist, so I can’t forget Newton’s Third Law of Motion. So Monday was a day of action, warm, alive, mobile. We decided to take a bike ride. Like all bike rides we ever take this one started off innocent and short. But we had all day so why not keep going. We made a loop from Altes Lager to the next town over and back, but then we just kept going to Treubritzen. It was only 9 Km from where we were. Then we kept going to this city, I forget the name but it was pretty far away. From there we just kept going until it was clear the next big place was Potsdam, which is close to Berlin and about 30Km from where we were. Then we turned around and headed back. Shortly after turning around both Gary and I realized how incredibly tired we were. We kept booking it because we had to make it home, there wasn’t a lot of option there. By the time we made it back my legs felt like jello and I was exhausted. Gary and I decided to celebrate with a nice Curry Wurst at one of our favourite restaraunts. We go there often enough to be able to say, ‘Give me the usual’ and they know what we mean (though we never say that, we just walk in and they know what we’re going to get and we take a seat.) We sat and ate and took a few deep breaths, looking forward to another day of sleeping in.
And now for the day of inaction, cold, laziness. I slept in and then did nothing. Then I walked to the church and got on the computer, played some guitar, and sat around. Then Gary and I went to Jüterbog, but everything was closed. We found an Asian food restaurant and got lunch or dinner or whatever it was. It was really good because it was spicy, which most food in Germany isn’t. We had to eat out because we didn’t have much money, and the grocery store was closed. After that I think we watched some music videos, I don’t remember because I try to block that day out. It wasn’t bad but it was boring I guess, or just not really memorable. But really, I think everybody needs a day like that sometimes.

2006-10-07T15:22:00.000+02:00

Hort (Translation: After School Care Club, Refuge, or Shelter)

So after my day off I obtained a volunteer position through my boss type people at this thing called a Hort. Hort is like day care during the school breaks, and it is a really fun place to work. My first day we flew kites in a field nearby; it reminded me of my last few days in Louisville, when me and Pete (one of our many guests at the Convent) randomly decided to make a kite after catching a snippet of Mary Poppins. It was a good kite, and had a button warning everyone that it did, in fact, collect souls. It was a black kite, made from a garbage bag and some of Katie’s dowel rods, she wasn’t too happy about that. We decorated it with a piece of a bag of Tortilla chips that said Fiesta or something in Spanish. Then we took it to the skies and got a pretty good flight time. I figured after making old Darth Fiesta (we named the kite something like that) fly, a proper kite would be no problem, even without much wind. It seems, however, that our kite design was somewhat superior to some of the cheaper store bought kites, so, Pete, if you’re reading, Kudos to us and Darth Fiesta (or whatever his/her/it’s name was). After a bit I was able to make most of the kids kites fly, as long as that got a running start that didn’t stop. After successfully helping one of the more impossible kites fly I was sought out as the kite master. This was cool, because I felt pretty popular and intelligent, but it also meant that every kid came and asked me to help them with their kite, and that worked at to someone asking me at least once every 15 seconds. After the kites got boring we went to a playground, where the kids decided to attack and jump on me. That went on for a long while.

Then I rode my bike home. Yea, I rode my bike to work, which wasn’t really far away, only 5 Km or so. After the hort that day we were supposed to have an English lesson at this internet café in Nidergörsdorf. Gary had a meeting in Berlin, so I went solo, and on my bike. I ended up getting there late because on the way the chain on the bike fell of and it took about 15 minutes to get back on. It didn’t end up mattering too much because no one was there when I arrived, so I knocked on the door of the café and a woman answered with a look that told me I wasn’t expected. She only spoke German, so I did my best to explain the reason I was there. She told me she didn’t know anything about that, but checked with the other lady that was there, then called the lady that is usually there when Gary and I are and came back saying ‘Yea, you’re supposed to be here, but the kids aren’t’. Then she gave me some Powerade and I waited. An hour later it was time for the sport in the gym. Three kids came, but neither of the two adults that usually help us showed up. So I was alone, and we played in the gym for 2 hours. It was confusing and weird but I got through it. Then I rode my bike home.

The next day at Hort we went to Jüterbog where I held the kids hand while we crossed the street and other supervisory type things. I got a free lunch out of the deal. The best thing about the Hort is that the kids are from the school, so I get a chance to spend time with them where I’m not a teacher. Because they know me, they trust me. It’s fun to get to play with kids that I usually teach, even though the teaching is mostly playing games anyway. It is still different. And it’s a lot more fun than having any real responsibilities, at least for a while.

2006-09-30T19:46:00.000+02:00

Rain on a Perfectly Good Carnival

Okay, I don’t want to mislead you, there was no actual rain, it’s a metaphor. You know, one of those things that have a deeper meaning. Except the meaning of this one isn’t all that deep. Or maybe I just liked the title and it has nothing to do with anything, you be the judge. Anyway, here is the just of it:

Today was our last Saturday of the year working for the Jugend Mobil. It seems they are packing it up for winter, since it gets really cold here. Yet another reminder that I still need a warm coat. Though part of me will miss the cursed contraption, the other part of me is with Gary and his sarcastic lament of ‘Shade’ (which means: That’s too bad, but has a slight aura of sarcasm to it.) I mean, I look back at the hours sitting around the colourful truck in the midst of our various games and average of 2 children playing them and I can’t help but get a few tears in my eyes. Of course they could just as well be tears of joy over getting Saturdays back, but who’s counting? Now don’t get me wrong, I know that there was some reason for the work, and it wasn’t all bad. There were good times playing soccer and connecting with kids via sports and games which don’t require an extensive knowledge of the German language. It made it easier, but it also took up every Saturday this month, usually for at least 6 hours. You see Saturdays are a day of rest, of sleeping in and watching cartoons and eating cereal for lunch and sometimes dinner if you felt the urge. Saturdays are a day of reading books and taking long walks, or maybe riding into town and walking around. They aren’t supposed to be days where you wake up at 7 AM (which for us is technically sleeping in anyway) to ride to Berlin and sit to sit in front of a truck all day trying to get kids to play basketball or the marble game.
But they did bring some good memories, like the time Gary ate it on the 4 person snow skis, which was amazing, or the time me and Gary challenged some German teenagers to a game of soccer even though they obviously were taking it easy on us, or the many times it provided us with free food and free cake and coffee (Kafee und Küchen). There was also the drunk guy in Berlin who we call Napoleon because he randomly did a Napoleon Dynamite kick before running around and stealing a piece of our bosses cake. It was also a ticket into a few pretty kickin’ German festivals we would have never known about. So, despite all my complaining, it did actually give us something to do on Saturdays and made us feel a little more important sometimes. So though in a way I’m glad to have a break from it, it is only because I know as soon as the weather turns nice again it’ll start up again and I’ll have cause to celebrate my precious little free time.

2006-09-28T19:36:00.000+02:00

Full Circle (Literally)

So when we last left our hero’s they had just finagled a ride to Meckeshiem after missing their first train. They boarded another one at around 8 (an hour after they should have left) this time heading south instead of north. All in all the journey took 8 hours, with only one minor adventure. They were supposed to catch another train in Bad Frisenburg, but the town wasn’t labelled very well and they didn’t get off. Luckily the next stop was only about a mile away and they reached just as the train they were meant to board arrived. Finally they arrived at Meckeshiem where they immediately saw their friends John and Rachel, who, consequently were on the same train as they were. They shouted ‘HEEEEY’ at the top of their lungs and managed to get everyone in a ten foot radius’s attention. Luckily John and Rachel weren’t quite 11 feet away. So their cry had worked and they spent the next 30 minutes making up for lost time. Then they found their lodgings. Then they feasted on Spaghetti and bread and the like. There was much merry making. After dinner, our hero Keith and his friends John and Rachel went for a walk and a little plotting. The next day we went to the ‘Cute’ city of Heidelburg, which has a Schloss (Castle) and we went to visit it. One member of the group, Mattias, decided it would be fun to have a picture that looked as if he was jumping off a cliff, I don’t know why but it was weird. He seems to have a obsession with jumping and climbing things. He might be the missing link between monkeys and humans…who knows. (Sorry Mattias, but I pick on everyone…even my stupid stupid self…no…okay, not really). We also went exploring for other things, and dubbed this year of Intermenno the year of the Unicorn. Good times were had by all. Then I played Guitar all night long. All in all it was good times if not a bit too short, luckily some people are coming up to visit Altes Lager soon. Now on the way back, our noble heroes were on one train the entire time, it only took 5 hours, but they didn’t get back to Berlin until 10. Then they had an hours trip to a city an hours walk from Altes Lager. They should have had a ride, but no one came and they had no phones. So Keith got out his trusty headlamp of power and they set of for the final journey home. Despite the Thieves and evil on the streets our heroes might and tenacity must of scared them away, and they made it home with no problem. Keith arrived home to a full mailbox (Thanks LUC, Jodi, and MHC Lifeworks!) The End…or is it? PS this is called full circle due to several factors, one, we walked both to and from the train station, B.) We often sat in a circle during meetings, 3 Just because. And most importantly because we travelled around the south of Germany one way of our trip, and north the other, thus making a full circle, (pretty much) around all of Deutschland.

2006-09-28T19:31:00.000+02:00

A Requimesque Piece to Celebrate/Honour/and Otherwise Remember My First Two Months
ODER (OR)
If You Wanna Be Famous

Just move to another country and work with children. Not only will they shower you with pieces of paper with or without hearts drawn in magic marker. Not only will they ask you every day to sit next to them on the bus, knowing already that you have to sit in the back with the big kids. Not only will one or two of the mislead young ladies develop odd fascinations with you. Not only will they come by and ring your doorbell. No, more than that, every time they see you they will smile and say something, give you a high five, shake your hand, whatever. And sure, sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes it gets old (the doorbell thing is a good example, as is it an example of them bad part of being famous), but sometimes, when you’ve lost your hope in humanity and some kid comes up all excited to shake your hand, it just makes your day (again, never the doorbell ringing, because my doorbell sounds worse than an alarm clock, which you know I hold to be among the worst sounds in existence.) Now I have my favourites, I know they all say you shouldn’t have them, but everyone always does anyway (and besides, I don’t treat them much different). One of them is this kid Lukas who has really white blonde hair. I think he’s a slow learner, and has a lot of energy, but it’s hard not to smile when he gets all excited and says: ‘My hat is red!’ even though we happen to be talking about furniture. He also likes to shout my name every time he sees me, even if it’s quite often. I also have my not so favourites. Like the kid who cursed me in Russian before flicking me off (kids love their soccer here, and I’d tried to make him sit out for the small act of punching this kid twice). Or maybe the kids who pushed me into another classroom while class was still going on (thankfully it was one of the English teachers, so I could explain what happened). But the point is there are so many solid kids around, that aren’t mean to me, but who just treat me normally, which a lot of times is appreciated as it is sometimes seemingly rare. As I am teaching English I feel that I am living vicariously in London through the eyes of Terry, Emma, Lisa and Sam who are feature in the book we use. Who cares if maybe they aren’t really actual children at a school in London, and MAYBE they are really called Terry Emma Lisa or Sam, but boy do they ever have some adventures at that school of theirs. Like, remember the time when Emma forgot her lunch money so her and Sam had to share sausage and chips? Oh that was quite an adventure indeed! Or when Emma got all boy mad over Jake Howard? Man, her and Lisa didn’t talk for a week.
It’s not just the kids that make you feel good though. I have Frau Förster, who was my host mother, and who pretty much a mother to us now. In fact that is a little nickname me and Gary have for her, she is quite protective and makes sure we always know what is going on. At one boy, just before our excursion to Meckesheim, she even referred to us as ‘Her Boys’. We also have Frau Hampil, who teaches us German, she is very encouraging, and since she only knows German, is a good person to practice German with. The are also the Unrau’s, who consistently have us over for a rousing game of Siedler von Catan (Settler to you USAnians or Canadians) I always lose, but I talk the most trash…so it’s a trade off. There is Ina who knows a little English and always corrects our German, and Johan who taught us Sheep vs. Wolves. I’ve been here two months now and have made a few connections; I feel a little more at home, a little more consistent and a little less like a tourist. I still have lots to learn, mostly German. But all in all it’s been a crazy, hectic, unsettling, but refreshing, amazing two months. And that’s How Lovely my Dwelling Place is. (Sorry that’s an MHC Choral Joke, we sung part of Bram’s Requiem, but now I don’t feel smarter than anyone after explaining it.)

2006-09-25T21:52:00.000+02:00

M to the Eckisheim

Word. So this is the story, all about how, my (travel plans) got flipped and turned (literally…almost) upside down. Don’t thank me, thank Big Willy Style, only back when he was little Willy/Fresh Prince. Or the early 90s. So this past weekend we had an Intermenno Conference in Meckisheim, it was amazingly fun. The problem came in getting there. We had went earlier in the week to buy tickets, and the tickets began the journey at 6:55. That wasn’t quite early enough for Gary and I, so we decided that a pleasant hike to the train station was in order. We got up at 5AM, thinking we would just sleep on the train when the time came, and left at 5:55, an hour before our train left the station. We figured the hike would only take about 40 minutes or so, it was only 4 K’s. Well around halfway their the sun was getting brighter, which let me to believe it was getting close to 7, and made me a bit nervous, but seeing as neither Gary or I have a watch, I was giving it the benefit of the doubt. The doubt was right in the case though, because a few minutes before the station we glanced upon a clock that told us it was 6:55, which set us in a frantic scramble the rest of the way. This lead Gary to exclaim: ‘Why did I wear sandals?!’ We made it to the station in time to complain avidly about not leaving 5 minutes earlier. I was under the impression that the game was lost, and didn’t fancy the idea of walking all the way back home to ask for advice. So I went to the ticket counter and in German acquired a new ticket to Meckesheim for 129 €, which was a little less than the 140 combined Euro’s Gary and I had. Phew. Relief set in, we were going on vacation. The interesting part was that our original tickets were heading north and first and then to the M city, but our new ones headed first towards Bayern and then to M stadt. That’s right, I just used a German word. And the first tickets made the trip in 5 hours, while the second took a meagre 8 hours. It was a long ride. Unfortunately dear readers I am so tired that I am making spelling mistakes all over the place, which means its time to call it a night. More explaining that and the most awesome trip ever in the history of German (with more of my usual levity) next time, same me place same me channel. Rad…which means either Radical, or in German, a Bike. Cool huh.

2006-09-25T21:50:00.000+02:00

A Day for Gifts (Einen Tagen für Geschenke)

So, I was going to start this with: I have in my pocket several pieces of paper…but it’s been a few days and so that line won’t work because the paper is not in my pocket anymore. Anyway the point is that last Thursday I was teaching a lesson on Furniture, well stuff you’d find in a room, it’s hard to explain. I handed out this worksheet with an empty room and pictures of stuff on it, and they would cut out the pictures and glue them and all, nice fun, not to stressful. So they did that, and then one of them said they had a gift for me and gave me a piece of paper, which I wasn’t about to keep. Then, as 2nd graders do, they all proceeded to run the joke into the ground. So I kept all of them, just so the kids wouldn’t think they weren’t funny, or maybe I really am nice after all and didn’t want to hurt their feelings. But then one of them drew a little heart on one of the pieces of paper, and I decided that that one was worthy of really keeping. The other pieces I slipped into the trash after the kids left. Later that day…in the first class a kid gave me a drawing of a bunch of hearts. I felt pretty loved, which is good because the kids aren’t always good at paying attention, which sometimes for me translates to ‘You’re boring’ in my head. But the real gift came later when I went to check the church after work (sometimes there is free food their, so I usually stop in). There were Russian ladies cooking these awesome things that were pretty much deep fried hamburgers. Okay so that makes me sound like some nasty grease loving USAnian, but sometimes I enjoy a fried taste sensation. Then I was talking to the people at the church in German and it just started clicking, mind you it was simple German, but still, after feeling like an idiot for so long, it was a nice gift for once to feel at least somewhat intelligent for a few hours.

2006-09-19T21:23:00.000+02:00

Something Strange

So today was very dark and cloudy. The morning was pretty warm but it got progressively cooler. In the fourth period I was with the third graders and we went over clothes and stuff. I had a hard time remembering to call pants trousers or jeans (the kids are learning British English) but I think most people would, because who really wants to say trousers when you can say pants. I was again reminded of how odd it is that pants and shorts are plural objects. That wasn’t the really strange thing though. No, the really strange thing was that I sat down at the back, near some rowdy kids. It was my hope that my presence would calm them down, but I guess I forgot that most of the kids past the 2^nd grade don’t grant me the same respect as they would a teacher. I like to think it’s because I can’t reign down on them in German and put them in their place, but it also had something to do with the fact that they were young girls. In some odd quest for attention, one of them had cut off a rather sizable piece of their hair, which was weird enough. Then after a few minutes of me wondering if I should attempt to explain in my limited German that you shouldn’t cut your hair (I tried once in 2^nd grade and got in big trouble) when she did something even more odd. She borrowed someone’s glue stick and proceeded to glue the piece of hair on her chin like a beard. That’s about when the teacher noticed and yelled at her, and I moved to a more well behaved part of the class. Also today I was struck with a bit of reminiscence of last year with my people at the LUC. It was good times, and I guess my memories were stirred by looking at pictures of last year on my computer, which I finally got a proper adapter for. It wasn’t a sad time, and I didn’t feel homesick, I just remembered how weird it was at first, and how normal it became, and a few of the fun times we had. It just served to make me excited about fun times here, some of which will come at the Intermenno Retreats, and some of which come from teaching, and some from playing Siedler von Catan with Jake, Dorothy and Gary (the pastor, the pastor’s wife, and my fellow Trainee) I haven’t won yet, but then again, I never really do. But I think I am finally learning that the enjoyment is in the playing of the game and not necessarily winning, though it is fun to try. I guess I am going to survive here, as long as I look forward to the right things, like the moment when German finally makes more sense. Or when everyone comes to visit good old A. L. Good times will be had, I can feel it.

2006-09-19T21:19:00.000+02:00

Jetzt du bist alleine

On Monday, a few teachers were not a school, and to compensate there were extra English lessons. For me this meant that for the first time I would be completely alone in the classroom. I was kind of like the substitute teacher, except my German isn’t all that great yet, so the kids could take more advantage than usual. Unfortunately for them I was raised in American schools, which have considerably less tolerance for noise than the school I teach at does. Or perhaps that was unfortunate for me. Who knows. I feel like it went pretty well. I taught one fourth grade class (Vierte Classe) and one fifth grade (Funfte Classe). The fourth grade class was really fun because we listened to this song called ‘The Hobby Song’ and I made them stand up and do some motions for it, which I hope helps them remember hobbies. The fifth grade class was pretty loud and had a lot of questions, partly because the work they had to do didn’t make a lot of sense, even to me. I had hoped they would understand because maybe their text book explained it, but I was wrong. So, with a touch of improvisation, I just had them make up some sentences and read them out loud. The teachers all seemed a bit nervous for me, but I tried to assure them that things went smoothly. I like the teachers I work with, though I am still too nervous to have conversations with them, I hope that that will come with time. They are all very nice and seem to be interested in how I am doing and how things are going. So it is nice to have them helping me, even if sometimes they speak a little too fast for me to understand everything. The first grade teacher later asked me where I was in the Dritte Stunde, (third period) and I explained how I was by myself in the classroom with the 4^th grade. She understood, but I had missed out on my usual Sport Stunde with the 1^st graders. That’s right, three times a week I go with the first grade and play games during their PE time. I’m not sure if that is a normal thing or if it is because I mentioned how I helped teach PE last year to 1^st and 2^nd grade, but either way it’s fun to have a little reminder of the great kids I got to teach last year. All in all my first experience by myself in the classroom was okay, but I’m not sure if I’d be cut out to do it full time, but maybe everyone is nervous at first.

2006-09-19T21:17:00.000+02:00

Something Like a Sunday Afternoon

Those of you that know me well should, by now, be aware that Sunday is my favourite day of the week. I don’t know why really, I guess because it’s a day I can really relax because church gives me a reason to wake up somewhat early, and the lack of work gives a good reason to be lazy or sleep. This past Sunday was no exception, and it was a beautiful day and I decided to not be lazy and go on a leisurely bike ride. I took the famous Skater Bahn of Tetlow Fläming; trust me, it’s very famous here, I’ve been told about it about a million times. I went a little ways towards Nidergörsdorf proper, which is something like 7 Km away from where I live. Then I went down this really big hill, a sign said it was 90% grade, or I’m a liar. Take your pick. Then I just turned around and on the way up saw a rollerblader who used a stick as a break. That was funny. Mostly because he had on this spandex wind suit. Then this lady asked me if this was the way to Altes Lager, which it was. Of course she asked in German, and therefore could’ve asked if this was the way NOT to Altes Lager, but I don’t think so. I said ja, it was, because it was. She bladed past me and then stopped and checked her map. ‘Was suchen Sie?’ I asked, just to clear things up. She said ‚Ich suche Neues Lager, ich spreche falsch.’ Then she left and I wondered if she had said she told me wrong or that I told her wrong, I’m pretty sure it was her mistake though, because she seemed pretty lost. Anyway, after that I headed back, and upon reaching my humble abode, I saw the children that caused me such grief a few episodes back. That’s right, think of these as episodes. Anyway, as I drove past they told me in German how they had rung Gary’s doorbell, and that he was upset about it. And he might of sprayed them with water, but that is just hearsay. Anyway, not wanting to deal with them on a Sunday of all days, I rode past and decided that maybe I would ride for a bit longer. About a minute later I ran into a homeless guy who a wanders around these parts. Now, I’m not heartless, but this fellow we have dealt with before, and he has a tendency to linger on forever and ask over and over for ‘Funf Euro’, which since we don’t know his proper name, is what we call him. He is a part of the community here and all so don’t think I’m making fun. But last time I saw him he touched my face, which was okay and all, but I’m not a huge fan of people touching me, and people touching my face is a bit much unless I’m ready for it. Or I know the person pretty well. Anyway, the point is I really just wanted to go home and sit and read a bit, so I turned around and decided that I could get passed the kids quicker than my pal Funf Euro. Upon arrival, the kids, as expected, decided it would be fun to try to run over me with their bikes. So mounted my trusty bike and took off. Seeing as I am faster than them I got a little ahead, but they were persistent and eventually I slowed down. They caught up and kept trying to run into me. So I took off really fast and one followed, then I made to turn really quick and stopped. Now the kid following me was closer than I thought, and didn’t have time to stop, so he ended up hitting me and wrecking his bike, which was kind of funny once I realized he wasn’t hurt. Especially because it was an accident. He thought it was pretty funny too, and there may have been a few seconds where we actually bonded a little, though I can’t be sure because right after that he made to ram my bike again. So I headed home and to the safety of my room a some good fiction, to enjoy the rest of a wonderful Sunday.

2006-09-16T20:27:00.000+02:00

True Life: I’m A Carnie

The good news is I spent pretty much the whole day in Berlin. The bad news is that I was technically working. We got to sleep in this morning until 7AM, I know, awesome right? Then we headed out in a big blue van with 5 Russian ladies, 1 German driver, A Canadian, and me, a Statesman (United States mind you). That’s right; I’m changing it from American to Statesman, because Canada is part of America, as is Mexico. Plus I’m just feeling honery, forget it if I spelled that wrong. We got to Berlin via the Autohbahn, which has speed limits in most places; well it at least did on the part we rode on. Then we spent the whole day working with the Jugend Mobile. I was sitting there today, thinking, because we couldn’t play soccer like usual (the street was too close). And I realized that my job, as far as the Jugend Mobile is concerned, is a lot like a carnival worker. I go around to different places and try to get people to play the same games. We also have a Unicycle and stilts, which I try to use every time, but I still need to learn. But really we go around to festivals and get in for free and work by playing games. So I’m pretty much a Carnie, a government Carnie, but nonetheless (That’s right, the Jugend Mobile is a government sponsored thing). Last week we were in Dennwitz where there was a big cultural festival with Umpapa Bands and people in traditional garb, it was all really cool. It’s not a bad job really, though it can get boring. Though today during the most boring part this drunk guy came around and did a Napoleon Dynamite kick, which was hilarious. We also got free food, in the form of really hot soup, bochwurst, and free cake. One of our coworkers, Johan, who lives in the same Apartment building is us, was teaching me and Gary a game called Sheep and Wolves, with a checkerboard, (it’s a cool game) when the drunk guy came around and asked: ‘Can I eat that cake’ referring to Johan’s cake, but without really listening to the answer, he said: ‘Good’ and took it and ate it. That was pretty funny to, then we came home and fixed a nice dinner, and that was pretty much my day.

2006-09-16T20:23:00.000+02:00

Stick Shifts and Safety Belts

This past Friday me and old (young, teenage, etc.) Gary had ourselves a little adventure to Lukenwalde. That’s a town about 30 minutes away from us, or like 35 kilometers, I don’t know. We went to this ‘mall’ there, which is something like a grocery store with CD’s and everything, so maybe something familiar to Super WalMart or something, though a lot better because it isn’t taking over Germany or anything. The trick was that I drove, 100. I mean 100 Km/hour. The better trick was that it was that the only car was a stick shift; in fact all cars here are stick shifts. The car is a lot like Edgar from the days of the LUC dynasty, except the heat works. There’s no power steering, so it’s rough. I haven’t really driven too far in a stick shift, or ever, in a stick shift, so it was an interesting. OK so that day Gary was sick I drove to school, but other than that. I’m learning pretty quickly, I didn’t stall out on the road except once, and I only missed my proper gear like once. I stalled out trying turn around, but that was because I wasn’t in reverse, I was in 4th. Opps. I stalled out at a stop light because I was in 4th not first; I forgot I was in 5th. This is sounding like a math problem, so somebody tell me the solution. Afterwards we celebrated in Jüterbog by having a Big Döner and a good conversation. Things are going pretty well, and I think I’m finally learning to drive a stick shift. And maybe I’m realizing why a lot of people wonder: ‘How the heck do you drive an Automatic?’

2006-09-13T20:11:00.000+02:00

Concerning School Buses and Such Matters As Are Important

I already want to connect words like school bus together, and I’ve only been here a month. But anyway, lately I’ve been hitchin’ a most legal ride with the school bus to school. For those of you who may doubt it, riding a school bus has the potential to make you feel most popular, especially if you teach elementary school kids. Most days, well, okay everyday so far I am overwhelmed by requests for me to sit with this child or that one. They then proceed to ask me various questions auf Deutsch. Some of them I can understand, some of them I can’t and some of them I can even give a proper answer. For awhile I felt my learning was coming along quite quickly, but lately it seems to of slowed down or reversed and it worries me something might fierce (sorry for the colloquial, I guess being so far from the southern states makes one develop a bit of a longing, or I’m just a whimsical person in general, who rightly knows?). The bus is often crowded, and is not a school bus, per say, but rather a city bus converted for that purpose. As such, it requires a fee of its passengers; my monthly fee comes to about € 40. Aber my bossman takes care of that bill. Just thought I’d throw in a random German word for you. To prove I know at least one. The teachers at school are afraid that I don’t like them because I am always reading. It’s mostly that I don’t feel confident about how to properly address them, and sure they might not care and will, most likely, forgive the new English teacher who is trying his hardest to learn their language. It is still a hurdle I must jump over. I have tried stepping and it has worked with the two English teachers, but they know English. I also talk to the 1^st grade teacher, but she rarely graces our fair teachers’ lounge. Tomorrow I will attempt to bypass my fears and spout out a stream of quite grammatically incorrect German, and hope that someone somewhere can understand it. I am also attempting to cut back on my readings in English, though they are so entertaining, I fear it is best to settle a bit more in the cold waters of the German language until I find them refreshing. Plus I really need to learn and should put my studious efforts away from learning of things like new Harry Potter spells or the history of Middle Earth, and into learning German. Today I helped with the church’s Kinderstunde, well it’s called KLUB and is usually pretty fun. Today we played soccer. I was also supposed to try and make the kids open a forbidden plate, but I couldn’t do it. It may have been my poor knowledge of German, or the fact that the kids were pretty sure something was up. We also ate junk food, but any free food for me makes for a good dinner. Or snack or whatever. Today I also got to help with the 1^st grade PE hour. That was fun, we played a game I learned last year as a Gym Teacher called line tag, but, and my apologies to the creator of the game, I changed the name to Schlange in das Wald. Snake in the woods. I don’t know why, it just seemed easier that way, and a bit easier to explain. And kids love animals, even disgusting snakes. No, snakes are okay. It was fun, but today I feel Germanically stupid. I mean by that, that today I had a hard time understanding German, though at one point during KLUB I was sure everyone was speaking English, or at least that I could understand some without thinking hard. But then that faded and it became hard again.

2006-09-12T21:18:00.000+02:00

A Day in the Life

So admittedly it has been a long time coming for this one eh. Perhaps I was letting it sink in that I was, indeed, in a slump. Honestly though, right after I wrote that I began to feel better, also the next day the kids came round again and we have since gotten everyone we know to yell at them for us. And the guy that was here last year correctly named them, making me assume that perhaps they gave him a bit of a ring sometimes too. I apologize if my English has gotten more European, but the only books I have read lately were in British English, as is the language course used by the school I teach at. I guess I felt better getting all that emotion off my chest. My time here so far has been great, though at points lonely and boring, but that really isn’t different from my life anywhere else. So thank you, dear readers, for encouragement and steadfast approval of my thoughts when I much doubted I should share them. You have all been quite singular and capital. (I love Sherlock Holmes stories now)

Anyway random monologues aside (and I’m too lazy for proper punctuatory practices) I have reason to slightly rejoice. Yes, my work schedule is almost entirely unveiled for me. Now there is just enough mystery to keep me with a vague mysterious feeling, but not so much as is uncomfortable. The mystery lies in the looming Adult English classes I will end up teaching at some point, or rather, supervising. More mystery can be found in weekends, as some we work for the Jugend Mobile. But here goes my current rough draft. Mondays are the most boring, though usually not in a singularly bad way. I teach until around 1, got home via school bus (I’ll elaborate on that a bit gleichly) Tuesdays I teach until 12 and then have German lessons until 2. Wednesdays, I teach until 12, Germanize my vocabulary until 2 and then have Kinderstunde with the church for awhile, it’s fun so and sometimes lasts longer than others (though the name implies an hour length). Every other Thursday is a second Kinderstunde at the Geminde Nidergörsdorf. The name in English would be Kids Hour, which is misleading because last week it lasted what must have been at least 2 hours. But it was fun too if not a little tiring. I played tennis with this one kid with volleyball net, which was crazy because he slammed the ball quite heartily and almost smoked my face. Then I played volleyball with a girl from 3^rd grade in school. I also work at school on Thursdays. Fridays I just have school and it’s nice because it’s time to relax a bit. Some Saturdays we get to work with the Jugend Mobile which means, basically, that we play soccer for about 4 hours with various children, usually involving a festival of some sort. Some Saturdays we also work with a church and help kids learn English religious words (like cross, baptismal, whathaveyou) and play games with them. Soon I might also start giving guitar lessons as part of my job. I’m looking forward to that really, should be fun. Basically, wherever we go we are used as experts on the English language, who are trying to learn German. That is basically how we are introduced to everyone.

2006-09-12T21:16:00.000+02:00

So On Recent Events and Thus and Such

Tonight we went to Berlin and saw the Mennoheim, it should be known to you Menno folk as an interesting hotel (cheap) in Berlin. It is not downtown, but is near the train station that can take you there. We met some people who work with the church attached to Mennoheim, and talked to one mainly about trying to get young people to become active in the church. One of us will be in charge of that, and the other will go along as sidekick and probably throw in one or two ‘This is so cool’ s (Das ist ganz toll!) There’s a German lesson for you. I’m picking up a bit of German, well enough to teach English using mostly German to explain thing, albeit perhaps in a round about way with my limited vocabulary. It’s gotta be hard before it can be easy.

No missed trains and a nice Döner later I find myself here. I’m pretty tired, as I have been all week, haven’t got to sleep in for a couple weeks now and most of you are aware of my no nap rule. Yesterday I found myself getting a bit bored and perhaps sad, on the border, but then Gary and I started on a bike ride and ended up in Malterhausen, which is not far, but it was a good enough distance to get things off my mind. Things should get easier now as they start to settle down and I get into a routine (finally) but there are still long stretches of time where I’ve just finished a book and have nothing to do but sit and think or attempt to watch German programs on my broken TV (which ends up being a Dubbed Cosby Show or Eine Starke Familie [Step by Step in English, though literally: A Strong Family]). That is when a bike ride comes into play. Of course I realize I should use that time to study German, and I sometimes do, other times it is just hard to be motivated, I’m surrounded by German and it saturates things, and admittedly, sometimes I grow weary of it. But, I just keep repeating the encouragement I’ve received from the people here, that my German is improving and that in a month it will be easier. I really hope they aren’t lying to make me feel better, but I have heard that German’s don’t really do that anyway.

2006-09-12T21:15:00.000+02:00

A Day in the Life

2006-09-04T18:30:00.001+02:00

Of Wind(ig) and Bad Moods

Today is one of the windiest days I have so far expericened. It is particularly windy here in Germany, as far as I can reason. Today readers you unfortunately find me in poor spirits. I think it comes from lack of sleep and perhaps a guilty conscious. This weekend there was a huge party here in Altes Lager, one I did not attend. It was quite the event, with spot lights and loud music which played continuously from 10PM Friday until 3PM Saturday. And again from 10PM Saturday until 8PM Sunday. It was loud and obnoxious and put me in quite poor spirits. Then on Sunday evening a few kids from the School I teach at kept ringing the bell to my room, which is obnoxious. My patience was thin as I was feeling sick, tired and cranky. So I went and at first was civil, but they then started to take other peoples mail, and seeing as they don’t know English I stuttered in German telling them not to mess with it. They didn’t listen, they only laughed. Annoyed I left their presence muttering in anger. They then proceeded to ring the bell again, just as a thought a nap might be possible, and they rung it for some time. I went out and they began running over me with their bikes. I took it amicably and final told them I was feeling sick and needed sleep and left them. Sometime later they called again and I was annoyed and went down and yelled in English for them to leave me alone, please, I was feeling sick. And I was feeling sick too. But since I have felt bad for being short with them. Though it really was their fault. I’m too hard on myself I know but the whole thing made me feel bad as a person. I think it is just that all the stress of where I am has finally caught up to me and I am finally feeling homesick and alone here. You really start to miss English when it is so far from available. I know that things will get better, I will feel better, and get sleep soon. But I hate to be alone. Times when I felt like this I could only manage sleep by staying up very late or sleeping on my friend from colleges couch. Those options are really readily available to me here seeing as my college friend is half a world a way, as is his couch, and I have to get up very early, so that staying up late is a bad idea. Plus there is nothing with which to occupy my attention with at so late an hour. Thus here I am found in my present state. Please send me love, it will find ample reception during these next few difficult days. I promise to attempt to return to my usual jovial self soon.

2006-09-04T18:30:00.000+02:00

Of Wind(ig) and Bad Moods

2006-08-31T20:46:00.000+02:00

The Teacher in Me

Yesterday, that’s right, I finally caught up, sort of, I skipped a lot of stories I could’ve told but I’ll get to those later. Yesterday was my first day teaching. I taught colours and it was alright. Today was my second day of teaching and I taught colours again, to a different class and it was a bit more confusing. But isn’t always.

Today started off at the usual time, though a botched travel back from Berlin last night made me considerably more tired than usual and made my fellow trainee Gary, a tad bit sick to his stomach. Okay, well we’re pretty sure it was something he ate, but having to wait two hours for a train back probably didn’t help. What happened was this: we were supposed to meet up with this guy, Olaf, at the train station in Jüterbog at 5:45, but some form of miscommunication happened, and seeing as we had just bought tickets to Berlin, we went anyways and found some happening stores to buy things involving English (books and cd’s, but I only bought a book, Sherlock Holmes). We wondered around the city until everything started to close and made our way to the Hauptbahnhof (train station) where we found out it was 9:45 and that the next train to head to Jüterbog did so at 11:15. But after a moment of confusion we found out that another train went to Jüterbog at 10:15, which was more excellent. Seeing as we hadn’t had dinner we stopped at a fast food place in the train station nestled under a couple of yellow arches. The line was long, but we had time. We order some burgers, but they only had one, so they handed me a number and said they’d bring it out to me. So I waited, and waited, and finally I got my order, but only part of it was cooked so I ate what I could without fear of disease and, seeing as they only spoke German, I didn’t complain. (I don’t know enough words) After that we found our platform and soon realised the time was 10:20, we missed our train. So the next train came at 11:15, an hour later, and around the time I get to bed these days. I know, you’re wondering who this guy is and what he’s done with your Keith and all that, but it’s still me, I just have to get up at 6AM and there isn’t much here to do after 10PM.

Following my usual routine I woke Gary up and got ready for the day by getting dressed and sitting half asleep in a chair for 30 minutes. Around 6:35 I was surprised by a knock at my door, it was Gary informing me that he felt like trash and couldn’t accompany me to work today. He looked pretty sick too. So I got in the car (a stick shift mind you) and drove to work, managing to only stall once backing up. I made it to school and was then informed that I was to teach the 1. Class the colours, just like yesterday. Only yesterday Gary and I did it as a team, and he had all the supplies. So I drew a picture for the kids to colour and got ready to look dumb. It didn’t go too badly, but it also didn’t go off as planned either. But we played some games and I tried to understand the German being spoken and then after breakfast we went outside, where I promptly broke the rules by jumping off something I wasn’t supposed to. In my defence I was dared. Well sort of. Okay so maybe the kid just asked if I could jump off it, but I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed. And maybe I was just happy I understood what the kid said, it was in German, and was over hasty to prove myself. It wasn’t a big deal though, except the teacher might think I’m crazy, but she’d figure that out soon enough anyway. It’s a strength anyway. So after that the teacher asked me about my family and told me about her’s and I got a few normal points back. Then we went back to class where the teacher used me as encouragement by telling the kids that not only did they have to learn German, but that I did as well. So far that’s been her favourite saying, but in a way it’s kind of nice because she said it in a way that said: We understand it’s hard, and we’re here to helpand it’s always nice to hear something like that.

I also got free lunch today, and during it got to chew the German fat with some ladies that work in the church and my German instructor. I didn’t say much at first but then I just started talking, or trying to, explaining that I was a Gym teacher last year and how that was fun. I always feel mentally exhausted and a bit dumb after speaking German because it takes a lot of thought. But today after I finished my spiel, one of the ladies said: ‘Du sprechst gut Deustch’ (You speak German well’.) Then my German instructor concurred and added that in a couple of month’s I’ll probably speak it perfectly. Now rather or not they were just being encouraging is debatable, but if Germans are one thing it’s honest and straightforward, so I have to take their word for it. And that, my friends was the best part of my day.

2006-08-31T20:44:00.000+02:00

Meinen Ersten Schultag

First off, just as a general observation, the school I work at starts way too early. Like 6AM too early. For those of you that know me, you’ll know I’m not much of a morning person. Secondly, the kids are school are crazy, and generally quite loud. But to the adventure that was my first day of school.

It began at 6AM, on a Monday. Now, I’m not particularly partial to Mondays because they come right after my favourite day (Sunday, genau). But even the extreme tiredness and crappy ‘80’s music issuing from my alarm clock couldn’t complete mask my excitement. You see it was my first day of school, my first day of work in my new job. There was a lot of anticipation to be had. We rolled up into the school around 7:15 and found our way to the Teacher’s Lounge. For any of you wondering what a real Teacher’s Lounge is like, well, I’m going to leave you hanging because my teacher’s lounge is pretty plain. It does have a copier, though. I can tell you’re pretty jealous at this point, so I won’t go into further detail. We spent the first period in the 2. Class, listening to kids tell about their awesome summer breaks (most of them went to some cool European country). Since they told about them in German, and because kids have a propensity to both mumble and talk really quickly, I didn’t understand a lot of their summer breaks. But I remember one kid just said he spent the whole summer playing computer games, though I’m pretty sure that wasn’t all he did, he just took the easy way out. But at least I understood everything he said. Then Gary left and I was alone, not really knowing where to go next because I was never told. Teachers and children began giving me commands in German, rapid fire style, but I didn’t have enough time to translate it all, so I just stumbled into the classroom next door. It so happens that the class next door was learning English. Being an expert in English my services were quite well appreciated. It was the first and only time I felt relatively useful during the entire day. After that the kids and teachers had breakfast break. So I stole away to the heavenly lounge (Sorry) and also stole a cuppa joe. Okay it was free and one of the teacher said I could have it, but still, I had coffee. I made my way to some other classes where I listened patiently to every fifth word that was said. Most of the other four I didn’t really understand, but I got the basic idea most of the time. Finally it was time for Lunch and I found my makeshift boss, the schools English Lehere Frau Wilke, and she said I could go. Now apparently I’m not too good at masking my emotions, or the Germans are particularly good at reading them, but Frau Wilke noted a slight tinge of confusion. Problem was that Gary had left on a mission to his workplace, Kindergarten, and I was stuck in Blönsdorf, which is a good hour away by bike. Frau Wilke asked how I was going to get home and I said half-heartedly that I’d probably walk. ‘No, no, no’ she said, ‘you’ll take the bus.’ Several other teachers agreed. More confusion on my part, because by bus they meant school bus, but here the school bus is a city bus and costs a bit to ride. ‘We’ll talk to the driver, you won’t have to pay’ Frau Wilke assured me. A few moments later I found myself crowded with the other children (based on my German skillz, I’m around a 2^nd grader) in a somewhat organized crowd, waiting for the bus. The kids ran around like a herd of angry goats and were twice as loud. I had just gotten into a good thought pattern when I heard a series of high pitched squeals, which always signals a freaked out child. Upon turning towards the squeal I saw the source, a blond haired boy who had a rather large earring. No wait, that’s right, it was a yellow jacket (or Vespa in German). A teacher rushed to his aid, though, in the process of trying, caused the bee to sing the child in the ear, and hang there from it’s stinger for a moment in mid air. As you can imagine this served to make the squealing worse. But later this was remedied by placing an apple slice on the child’s ear, though I’m not sure how that helped. Then my bus came and I was soon crowded in a small space with a bunch of kids, all asking what my name was and where I lived, and all asking me in German. Luckily, due to rigorous study, I was able to at least answer those questions in kind.

2006-08-25T17:25:00.000+02:00

Home Sweet Lonely Home

I forgot to mention the best part about the town I lived in with my host family. It was called Gräfendorf, which sounds a lot like Gryffindor, which is of course the house of Harry Potter. After a week of quick German learning, based on necessity (I still wouldn’t say I know German, but I’ve come a long way), I finally moved to my more permanent residence, my apartment. It’s really quite nice for a one roomer. It’s got a lot of space which at first made it seem lonely, but I’m getting used to it. Though I sometimes find myself wishing I was back in The Convent in Louisville with my 6 housemates, I balance this though by reminding myself that I am in Germany. I finally got to unpack and wear something other than the 5 sets of clothes I left out of compression bags. I am still in dire need of winter clothing, as I’m reminded with increasing regularity that it gets really cold here in the winter. It was hard at first to be alone in the apartment as I had grown rather attached to my host family, but after a few days and the start of my job things got better. I suppose the most inconvenient thing about my apartment is the lack of an oven. There is one available to use at the church, a pretty good one, but it’s a five minute walk to get there. Also, I need to replace the light bulb in the bathroom, but other than that, it’s a really nice place. The first few days were spent exploring the novelty of the apartments and finding stuff left behind by former Intermennoites, one being a bible from a 1971-72 trainee, though I’m sure it was originally sent elsewhere, it was still neat to find. Other necessities included a sleeping bag, travel pillow, Hertha BSC cap (the Berlin Bundesliga team), and a cool German flag pillow. And though admittedly I was a bit lonely, it was good to be home.

2006-08-20T21:45:00.000+02:00

My Dream Come True

Before I left for Germany, I had a dream where I arrived at my host family’s house only to learn that they didn’t speak German, only English. Well it turns out that that was quite a silly dream, because after hauling around 100 pounds of my clothes around all of Germany, I arrived in Jüterbog via a train from Berlin. I hopped of the train, which was quite a feat considering the weight I was carrying (all in a day’s work for Recycle Man, sorry, I couldn’t resist…I tried), to meet my boss, the preacher I would be working with, and my host family. After hasty German introductions which I wrote off as a formality, we carted our things to the cars to head to the family’s houses for a week. I had just settled in the back seat and put my seatbelt on when my host mother asked me a question. I didn’t hear her well so I asked her to repeat it, to which she gave a puzzled look. It was then that I realized that instead of only speaking English, my host family only spoke German.

2006-08-20T21:44:00.000+02:00

Part Two: Training Daze

So it’s 8AM in Elspeet and even though we ate twice on the plane, I’m starving. Luckily the first place we all head is to breakfast. Determined to make new friends I decided to sit at a mostly empty table and see who joins me. Breakfast starts after a brief speech about how great it is we all made it this far without losing anyone or any luggage, which is pretty significant considering the amount of people and luggage involved. I wolfed down breakfast pretty fast considering I’m a notoriously slow eater. Then came a horrible surprise, in the form of an after breakfast speech. It came from Johannes, a jolly man with one of the most amazing beards I have seen in person (and most people agree he is a striking resemblance to Menno Simons). He said “For the next two hours you may go to your rooms and do what you wish, sleep, etc. but after that there will be no sleeping until bed time.” Me and my roommate, John E. (from before) decided to stay up the entire day, which, at the time, didn’t seem like too bad an idea. The entire day was marked with the haze of sleep deprivation. The most memorable moment was when all the trainees were sitting in the hall outside their respective rooms, enjoying what was probably the oddest conversation ever, though I don’t really recall what we talked about. I do remember at one point we tried to figure out how the fire hose in the hall worked, and if it would cause an alarm to go off if we used it. We needed the fire hose to help wake up Gary, who is in Altes Lager with me now, who was laying face down on the floor and mumbling about wanting to sleep. After dinner that night I realized that every time I ate, I would get a stomach ache for a few hours, and then get really hungry again. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sick, so I just chalked it up to something to do with time zones or eating schedules (it was). We got a few brief and simple German lessons, and one most humbling scavenger hunt. We were given a list of German words and asked to find them, apparently my group was the only group under the impression that we weren’t to use a German dictionary (My group was: Me, Matthias, Gary and Rachel, who wasn’t allowed to help because she was in the program last year and knows German). A brief scan of the list told us that between the 3.5 of us, we only really knew about 4 of the 12 words. We made some wild guesses and were wrong on most of the others, but we figured, hey, maybe no one else really knew what they were doing. Of course if I could go back and do it now, I would conquer, but, as it was, my group was the only one to not find all 12 items; though we did prove the most entertaining group. A little later we broke in to groups again, and it was Me, Matthias and Gary again. We had to make a skit to explain German culture rules on recycling, which are quite complicated, and served to scare me away from throwing anything away until just a few days ago. In our skit I played the clever and debonair hero: Recycle Man, and explained to an otherwise ignorant Matthias (playing Ignorant Citizen No. 1) the merits of the Pfund, with a little help from Gary who played the Pfund Machine. The Pfand is a system where you pay about 25 cents extra for bottles and get it back for bringing the bottles to be recycled/reused. It proved quite entertaining. At dinner that night it was announced there would be a talent show, for which I volunteered, along with Rachel, to be the Emcee. Based on some part of the conversation on the first day, we had already decided that I should do a little “preaching” in a style inspired by southern churches and a little inspiration from a Evangelistic church I visited in Louisville. We took a good while planning it, and on the night of the talent show I was considerably nervous, but once I broke into my stride, most people found it quite funny, or at least the ones I heard laughing did. From then on I had earned the nickname “Reverend.” Sadly the next morning we left our temporary home in The Netherlands, which was quite nice and relaxing, and boarded a bus to Germany (well us Germany folks anyhow). We all got a few more hours to hang out at the train station before the train got there, then we threw our bags on and found seats. Me and Gary got off at the second stop and said our goodbyes. Then we lugged our heavy luggage around the train station in order to find the proper train. Once aboard it was around a 6 hour ride to Berlin. The conversation was lacking for a good portion of it. I always find it harder to say something when I have to. But after a couple hours Gary and I got into a good conversation, which lasted a good while until a German poked his head into the car and said something in German. “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” I managed to ask. He repeated in English his question of rather there were free seats in our cabin. I said yes, and he and two friends joined us, making our cabin hot and crowded. They then proceeded to have a conversation in German that lasted all the way until Berlin. Gary and I were uncomfortable and for some reason, a bit afraid to say anything, not even in a whisper. The Berlin train station is huge, and, in case you ever go there, I’ll give you a tip; the bathrooms cost 80 cents to use. Yea, I found that out the hard way. Luckily a friend of Gary’s happened to be in Berlin and at the Train station, and she guided us through the station to the train we had to catch. The train was to Jüterbog, a city 45 minutes south of Berlin. We got on the train with our heavy bags and began the trip to our final home: Altes Lager, Germany

2006-08-18T19:00:00.000+02:00

Sounds Of Settling

Sorry this is long awaited, I haven’t had time really to write, I’m using a group computer and well the internet costs money here, everywhere, so. Anyway Part 1 of a continuing saga in 3…2….1 After about 5 awesome, albeit a bit sad, goodbye parties I finally packed a year of my life into my trusty Subaru and set a course for another farewell, Asheville NC, home of my Alma Mater, Mars Hill College. After a brief stay at the Hotel Bailey, I headed to VA and my parents house, where they bought me a few going away presents, and I packed another, less prepared year into two 50 pound suitcases. The next morning I said goodbye to my twin brother (Hey LUC, did you know I have a twin?) and headed with my parents to Indiana. It was quite an enjoyable time to spend with my folks. We took it slow, stopping to eat, and we had a good time listening to a John Grisham novel on tape. All in all one of the best times I’ve had with my parents, and there hasn’t been a lack of good times with them, so that’s saying something. In IN I met up with my pal and co traveller, John E, and his parents. Had a lot of fun hanging with John while he packed and said so long to friends and family. I also got to enjoy the Swiss Days Parade, which was pretty dang cool. Then we loaded up a van with 4 fifty pound cases and headed to Toronto Canada, where we would fly out of the next day. Hung out for a few minutes in the Canadian WalMart and took in some enjoyable Canadian Television (Their Version of the Today Show is fantastic). Then we headed to the airport. We got there about 3 hours early and sat around until we realized that the baggage check line was getting pretty long, so we hopped in. One of the stewardesses gave my carry on a funny look and, as I put it on the scale, with a look that told me she had already decided it weighed too much, she kindly reminded me that, if my bag were to fall on someone’s head, it would kill them. So I took the laptop out and weighed it again, and it was under the weight limit (8 lbs.) but it was too late, she had given up on my bag. So I found another lady with approval stickers and told her I needed one, and without further question she handed one over, no problem. After that me and John made it to the proper terminal and looked for a minute for people our age. We found two, one of them being Gary, who is now with me in Altes Lager. Me and John looked around and guessed about other people in our program, finally finding another group of them. As we merged into one, John and I decided that this one person we saw was definitely the last person in the Intermenno Posse. So we walked up to him and asked “Are you Mattias?” to which he responded “How’d you know?” So we finally we all together, and boarded the cramped plane which took us on an 8 hour time travel to end up in Amsterdam around 8AM, meaning we missed pretty much an entire day. We then found the appropriate people and boarded a bus for Elspeet, The Netherlands, about an hour away, where we would begin our Intermenno Training Session, but that, of course, is another story.
Total Travel time so far: 36 hours

2006-07-09T05:31:00.000+02:00

Tempus Fugit oder die Zeit vergeht im Fluge

I know, the first one is Latin, and the second one I had to look up so it doesn't count as something I can say in German, but oh well, the saying isn't proving true. Since school let out here in Louisville, I haven't been teaching PE, so I spend a lot of time sitting around. I watched the Deutschland v. Portugal game today and it only served to make me more anxious to get to Germany. I work most nights which only serves to limit my social life/travel plans, so life these days is somewhat boring. It's mostly that I am waiting to go somewhere and am getting quite impatient because I am excited to be going. Most of you know I'm not one to get excited about things very often, so it's kind of new territory for me (no pun intended, none taken [for those of you who are clever and caught the soccer match Germany v. Portugal]). Lately it seems I have been dealing with an aspect of time I am all too familar with, it's tendency to slow down at times. As a whole this year has flown by, I look back my first days here with a sense of nastalgia, wishing that, if only for just a moment, I could go back to those times where this place (Louisville) and these people (my housemates, props to Alisa, Andrea, Ben, Emily, Katie, Maria [alphabetical]) were new and held a sense of wonder in my mind. Of course there was also a bit of anger there too (like trying to find my way around Louisville at first [took an hour to get to work which is 20 minutes away). But the past few days have decided to drag themselves out, I have less than a month here, and sometimes it feels like an enternity. However, it's not as bad as it sounds because it will be my last few weeks with my lovely housemates and I will be somewhat distraught to have to leave them. No more midnight games of Dutch Blitz, even though I lose every time (I'm getting better and one day will come back to destroy all of you with blazing speed and hopefully more Dutch sounding "BLITZ"), no more walks to the Bank or Walgreens, but best of all, no more complaining (hahah!) Seriously though, it'll be a sad day. Or I could just be feeling all sentimental because I'm tired.

2006-06-21T22:43:00.000+02:00

I'm Still Not Sure How to Make Titles, But...

I Can Change The Font, and type with as many capital letters as i want. (Same goes for lower case). I have successful done every post trip chore asked of me. It wasn't really alot, and some of it was exciting, and good for me. Like the trip to the dentist, which was somewhat painful, but now that it's over I realize maybe I should really go more often. Anyway, I received more information about my placement. I will be working in connection with the Christliche Glaubengemeinschaft (Christian Fellowship) Mennonite church. The town I will be living in has some historical value as it was a former Nazi German Airforce base, and later a Russian Airforce base during the occupation (just after WWII). After Reunification the base was abandoned. Many social issues faced the town, leading to the creation of the Christliche Glaubengemeinschaft. My placement will be doing various activities in the myriad of ministries run from the church. There is a musical opportunity for me as well, in a band connected with the church, which makes my ponderings into taking one of my musical intruments along for the journey. Perhaps my bass will prove most useful as I am better at it than the others.

Also I have decided that I would like to go on a pilgrimage at some point, hopefully soon. I'm not sure when or exactly why, but I guess I was inspired by this show. Maybe it will help me decide where to go with my life.

2006-05-29T03:50:00.000+02:00

Wo ich gehe?

I think that basically translates to "Where am I going?" It's the best I can do...still on the learning curve. But I think I'm progressing a little bit at least. Just thought I'd let people who are wondering know that I've found out where I'm going to be in Germany, and, roughly, what it is I will be doing. I will be in a small town called Altes Lager (in english, roughly: Old Lager[It's the square on the bottom of the map, the map is just of Brandenburg). It's an hour south east of Berlin and is in the German Bundes staat (Federal State) of Brandenburg. I will be teaching K-6 ESL classes, working with a Church youth group, driving people around and, apparently, playing sports. It's going to be fun, I can hardly wait.

2006-04-28T18:31:00.000+02:00

Bring those Babies over here...

I've been practically overwelming myself with German lessons these days. I found a pretty good course on the Deustche Welle website. It's all really got me thinking about how differently we use English compared to what people probably learn in lessons. We don't think about talking slowly or anything and we say things like: (a quote from my housemate Alisa) "Bring those babies on over here." In reference to Cheez-its, and not, as it would seem, babies. It just leaves me knowing that I have alot to learn and I'm a bit nervous, because no matter how much I study I'll never retain all the knowledge and even if I did, there are still little things to learn. It all seems disconcerting, but it's also a challenge, which is kind of what I signed up for, so you know, it's also pretty dang exciting.

2006-04-17T03:10:00.000+02:00

I guess I should explain. Starting in August this year, I'm moving to Germany for a year. No, not just randomly, I'm going over there with a program called Intermenno. My goals are to learn German (I've started studying already as a preemptive strike), to work hard, to make new friends and to learn about German culture. So far all I know is that I'm going to Germany...or Switzerland. And that I have a training in Toronto Canada on August 2nd of this year. I'll have to leave my cool housemates and the LUC (Louisville Urban Corps) a little early, which is really sad. But I plan to stay in touch with them. I should be getting corespondance about it all soon. The title of my blog, which is subject to change if that's possible, roughly means In Germany and other thoughts, except i think Gedanken is a verb, so it might be a very rough translatation. But anyway, Soon this will be filled with German thoughts, when I feel more inspired I'll probably talk about thoughts I've had preparing for the trip. That's about the just of it. Enjoy.

2006-04-10T00:07:00.000+02:00

I knocked on the leather colored oak door, and stood a moment in the cool breeze, taking in the fragrant German air. I had finally made it, and I couldn't wait to learn German. The door swung open. "Hallo," I said "Ich bin Keith." They were expecting me. "Guten Tag," they responded. "Wo ist mein Zimmer?" I asked, eager to put down my two suitcases. "Upstairs," they replied. I quickly exhausted the medicore German I'd learned before the trip, "That's all I know," I started. "That's okay," my German family reassured me. "I'm hopeing I learn quickly," I said. "Oh," they said "well, we only speak English."
It was the worst dream I've ever had. Well you know, in awhile, and you can't count the one where I broke my bass guitar because at the time that was too awful for words. But I was only a dream. In a way you have to like bad dreams, because there is always that moment when you realize that it was all just a dream. Relief is one of the best feelings.