Happy new year, internet people!
I was nervous about going home for Christmas. During the first four months I felt like I had really settled in well, and I was afraid going home, even for a week, would reset that and cause me to have to resettle all over again. But really, it hasn't. I had a great week at home, being able to see my family and visit my friends. In some ways I wished I had had more time, in other ways I was glad to be headed back to Germany.
Luckily, Gemma got back the same day I did. Which meant I didn't have to sit around and be bored and lonely for a week. We had one more week after our return to Germany before school started back, so we really made the most of it. Oh, that's right - we played cards. Let me explain, Gemma and I have a running card game that we started back in the week of our fall break when we still hadn't been payed. We've been keeping a running score since that fateful week in November. Before Christmas we had just reached 10,000. That's two months worth of playing. Last night after one week of card playing, we just broke 20,000. We enjoyed our week. We did get out a few times: shopping in Erlangen, movie and drinks in Bamberg, trips to the grocery store so we didn't starve, things like that...
Finally yesterday it was back to the grind. Of course, averaging about one class a day so far, it hasn't been too taxing yet. Yesterday I got to pull out a sort of old faithful lesson plan: the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King and today I just did the whole "interview the foreign girl" thing
Side note: I have mixed feelings about the whole "pretend you don't speak German" thing that teachers ask you to do. Not because I'm against it pedagogically, I do see the point in it. But it just goes against every nature of my being. For the past 4 months, my biggest pet peeve is going out and people assuming you don't speak German or would rather speak English. Now, I recognize that 7th graders who are trying to learn English aren't making assumptions about my language abilities. Obviously. But then I also hate when they ask "do you know any other languages?" When I have to lie and say "no" I feel like I'm just feeding that stereotype that English speakers don't ever learn foreign languages, they feel like their language is superior and therefore the only one worth knowing, or what have you. I actually take a little pride in thinking I'm helping to change that stereotype. Then, of course, when they ask how you ended up in Germany, things just get awkward "uh... I was just really interested in Germany. It seemed cool, ja?" Like I said, from a teaching standpoint it makes total sense that I would pretend not to know German. When students know you understand their native language, they tend to just give up on the new language whenever they feel like it. I guarantee if they knew I spoke German at all, half of those interviews would have just ended up with questions like "have you got any... uh... hmm... uh... Geschwister?" But instead, they would work just a little harder to come up with "brothers and sisters". But from a language student standpoint, it is difficult to just sit there and say "no, I do not know German. The only language I know is Engish." It's just strange!Things look like they're going to be pretty low key for the next few weeks. I have my first band concert coming up this Saturday, but other than that, no big plans. We have our first break of the new year in March (the same week that UGA has spring break, actually) and I just booked my flights to Edinburgh to visit Shahida again! I'm really excited to get back up there to see her, and we're trying to gather more of the old Zurich crew as well too.
I'll try to be good about keeping you posted on all the exciting happenings here in Forchheim (I'll let you know when we hit 30,000 in our cards). And, imaginary internet people, I hope you have a wonderful 2011!
Oh, and while I've got you here, new pics have been posted!
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