Finally!

For the week of Oct. 7-15.

I know I haven’t written in a while and I apologize. I haven’t had the chance until now. The last three weeks have been crazy. I will give you a brief overview (ok as brief as possible) of three weeks ago and then my next entry will be about my two weeks that I just spent in Croatia. Pretend like you are reading this 3 weeks ago!

My week started out with making pumpkin pies on Monday. As you know I have Mondays free and I had my family send me pumpkin pie mix from home so that I could make them for my host family. The pie mix made two pies and I ended up taking the 2nd one with me to school on Tuesday. My first dilemma was in making the crust. I had to substitute a baking butter for Crisco, which I thought would cause the pies to burn, but it ended up working out really well. The pie was absolutely delicious and my host family thought so too. They couldn’t come up with a taste that resembled pumpkin. I told them it is a taste of its own. They hadn’t ever had it either. All of my colleagues seemed to like the pie too. They hadn’t ever had it either. One of my teachers bragged to her class about how good it was. I wasn’t at school the whole day on Tuesday because I went on a field trip with Mr. Meyer, but they said as soon as I left, the pie was cut and vanished. Everyone complimented me on Wednesday and I was glad that they enjoyed the taste of an American specialty. Pumpkin is not really very popular in Europe. I think it is probably just an American and Canadian thing. I enjoy exchanging American culture with my German colleagues and it is nice that we can both learn something new at the same time.

On Wednesday, I was once again traveling around with Mr. Meyer. Our students were doing internships at different businesses in Kiel (this is a requirement for school and they do this for 2 weeks) and so we had to visit four of them to make sure things were going well and to thank the companies/businesses for allowing the students to be there. This was very interesting for me since we have nothing like this in the U.S. The students are allowed to choose where they do the internship and the company or business has to agree. We went to 2 Kindergartens (here they are like preschools), a company that sells apartments, and then the most interesting of all, the Canal Island. The Canal Island is exactly that, an island that lies in the middle of the North-Baltic Sea Canal. Only people with special permission or people who pay to take a tour are allowed on the island besides the people who work there. Our student took us as VIPs into the museum and showed us the development and a model of the canal.

On Thursday I was invited to go with a 12th grade German class to the Thalia Theater in Hamburg to see Maria Stuart by Schiller. Of course I agreed to go. We left around 5 in the evening and returned at midnight. The drama was modernized, which I am not a huge fan of and was performed on a rotating stage. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see and the theater itself was impressive. This was a very nice evening and I must admit that the students were very well-behaved.

On Friday morning, the first two hours I was to have my very first self-prepared classes as a teaching assistant. I was allowed to choose the topic and went with Stereotypes for the first hour and American school for the second. I think both were very successful. My 8th graders had never heard of the word ‘stereotype’ so my lesson was very productive and they managed to learn exactly what I had wanted them to. I had them perform “freeze frames” (acting out a scenario without movement) filling in the blank of “All Americans ” It was interesting to see what the students came up with and how the others interpreted what they were acting out. One group chose to complete the sentence with “All Americans drive big cars” and one student interpreted it as “All Americans have Chauffeurs!” I found this hysterical and so did the actual teacher of the class. Another funny one was “All Americans have guns” and a student interpreted it as “All Americans are criminals.” This almost brought me to tears from laughter! I asked the kids if they thought I was a criminal and they all laughed. I told them it wouldn’t be possible for me to be here if that were the case!! We then discussed whether or not stereotypes are good or bad and where they come from. Keep in mind this is 8th grade and we did this all in English. Yeah, German schools are way more advanced in foreign languages than the U.S. We are lucky if we start a language in the 8th grade. Anyway I could rant for hours about that.

I think the kids also enjoyed the second lesson I taught. I brought in two yearbooks, one from my high school and one from Bethany and let the students look at them. They soon started playing a game of who could find the most pictures of me! I couldn’t help but laugh. My teacher said, “I didn’t know you were a cheerleader.” and then I had to go on the defensive end of “cheerleading as a sport” and the stereotypes of jocks and cheerleaders. I like to think of myself as breaking down stereotypes : )This was a good connection to my first lesson. After they looked at my yearbooks, we discussed some of the differences in American schools and German schools and things such as sports, clubs, prom, and homecoming.

On Friday, I had a short day and was allowed to leave early to pick up my friend Helen, who I lived with at the Fulbright Orientation. She teaches in Satrup, a village of 300 or so people and traveled to Kiel by bus, a 3 hour ride because the trains were striking AGAIN. She stayed until Sunday and I gave her the grand tour of Kiel. I took her to Laboe and to Schilksee where the ’72 water Olympics were held. Friday night we met the teaching assistant crew for Chinese…mmm.

On Saturday Helen and I were invited to Canadian Thanksgiving dinner (FYI held in October) hosted by my friend Dierdre from Nova Scotia. Dierdre is very sarcastic and likes to make fun of the U.S. She claims that Canadian Thanksgiving was first and that Americans copied and made their own date. Does anyone know the reality behind this? I don’t. Anyway there were around 20 people there. Twelve of us were teaching assistants and Helen and I were the only Americans. The rest were from Canada, Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland, quite a crowd if I may say so. We all prepared dinner together in D’s apartment. We had an assembly line going. People were peeling carrots and potatoes, while others were making pie, and a few people were cooking. Of course the girl from Ireland ended up eating the rest of the potatoes. I guess some stereotypes you just can’t avoid!! She was also juggling gourds if this tells you anything about my friends here.

On Sunday we went walking on the beach with my host mom and grandma. Oh yeah and I forgot to mention that we took a bus tour of the countryside by accident. Apparently there are two buses with the same exact number that stop at my bus stop and they go to two different places. We wanted to take the one to Schilksee but ended up in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. We knew we made a mistake when it was the last bus stop and we were the only people left on the bus. We got a good laugh out of this and I asked the bus driver about how to get where we wanted to go. He didn’t even have a clue! We rode the bus back to my stop and 2 minutes later we were sitting in the same number bus but arrived at the destination we originally wanted…yeah sometimes the bus system in Germany can be complicated...I still don’t understand what happened there!

Fun Fact

So they took a picture of us at the consulate and I wasn't sure what it was for. Check it out if you want. Thought it was kind of cool.

http://hamburg.usconsulate.gov/

http://hamburg.usconsulate.gov/hamburg/meetus2008.html

Tag der deutschen Einheit!

Hello Everyone! Sorry I haven't written in a while! I thought since today is a holiday in Germany and I have the day off I would write what has been happening the past week or so. FYI the holiday today is German Unification day, so the day East and West were formally reunited into one country. This will be pretty long...so here goes.

As you all probably have seen in the news, the Euro hit an all time high this past month. It is trading at approximately 1.42 to the dollar, which is bad news for me since I have yet to get my paycheck...but will be good once I get paid!

Last week I actually got to take over a few of my classes and pretty much teach on my own. I was really nervous, but it was fun and my teachers seemed impressed with the way it went! I was excited to hear that. Slowly I am being integrated into the classroom and the students are getting used to seeing me around. The topic in 13th grade right now is the 2nd Amendment, the right to bear arms, the death penalty, and violence in the U.S. Sometimes I start to think that the only thing the students learn about the U.S. are the worst things. But looking at reality, there are a lot of things that need to be changed in the U.S. The students of course think that the 2nd Amendment is out of date and were shocked to learn that it comes after the rights of an individual. They couldn't believe that something like that would be seen as so important. They believe that the right to have a weapon is a vicious circle. I myself agree, however, many Americans feel that this is the only way they will be safe. In Germany guns are illegal for citizens to possess and the crime rate is MUCH lower than in the U.S.

On the weekend I was invited out to dinner with the head of our English dept. at the school, with whom I work very closely. First we met at her place and watched the Hamburg Soccer team play to victory (she is a huge soccer fan and they have a basement set up like a movie theater with a projector and big screen!!!) Then we went out to El Greco, a very nice Greek restaurant, where we met up with her sister, who really wanted to meet me and two of her friends. They are all in their thirties, but are a lot of fun. After dinner we went to a student bar called "Trotzdem." This was a very nice evening.

On Sunday, my hostmom, grandma and I went into the city to the Pottery market. This is once a year and there were so many amazing pottery pieces! If I had had a million dollars, I would have bought it all!

Monday, I went to Hamburg to the U.S. Consulate to meet with the director of the program "Meet US," in which I will be taking part. It is the outreach program for schools who do not have teaching assistants and want to have Americans come to speak to their students. I will be paid to do this and I think it will be a lot of fun. When I first got to the consulate, I felt like I was entering a prison with all the police and gates, but once I got inside it was much better. The director of the program gave us a tour of the building and told us that the 1st consulate general in Hamburg was a man from Scotland. I thought this was an interesting fact. There were 7 of us total who arrived for the meeting. Three of us are Fulbright teaching assistants and the other 4 are exchange students at high schools in the area.

Today, since we have the day off, my host mom, grandma and I went to Schilksee to walk around. The olympic games were held there in 1972. Sailing and such took place there. It is a beautiful day here so it was perfect for walking along the coast. A lot of fisherman were out today, my host dad included!

I'm starting to get used to Kiel and am better at finding my way around. I wanted to share some of the things that make Kiel and the surrounding area special or things that I now associate with it:

Horse Riding
Fields/farms/animals
Sailing/fishing
Handball (Kiel has the best Handball team in all of Europe, maybe I will get to watch a game!)
houses with straw roofs (in the outside villages)
Plattdeutsch--- Wat is dat? (a German dialect spoken here)
Wind energy
Beaches (sometimes you have to pay to enter certain areas of the beach...this is because they keep them very clean)
Strandkoerber (wicker seats that are rented out on the beach for people to sit in)