Das alles ist Deutschland

If you want a good idea of what Germany is like, watch this video.

And here are the lyrics (translated into English, no worries).

Have been enjoying this week, except I have way too much free time and thus have been wasting my time doing nothing. I really need to get out and do more stuff, but it's getting too cold! Hmm, maybe I'll go to a museum now since it's Thursday evening and they're free. Except I have to meet someone to do a language tandem thing tonight.

Anyway, last night I went to the HU Christian group's Bible study. I had a good time (when I could understand what was going on), but it was funny that out of the seven people there three of us are native English speakers. And a few more who weren't able to make it are also native speakers. So I think technically the native German speakers are outnumbered. Oh well. But yeah, it's a good opportunity for me to make friends, because otherwise it is quite difficult. I haven't kept up with any of the other American or British TAs (except for one), because I did not come to Germany to hang out with Americans. Although I guess sometimes it would be nice to have an English-speaking security blanket. I think most of them are mainly interested in clubbing and staying out until 6 in the morning, which is not really my thing. No, not my thing in the least bit. So now I have a few people from this church I go to and I hope these people from HU, but we'll see how it goes. And perhaps I will make friends in my German class? Oh, I also contacted a pro-life group in Berlin because I think it would be cool to get involved here, and I was surprised to get a response--the website was so outdated-looking that I figured the group was now defunct or something. So I will update you if in fact I do do anything with other pro-lifers.

It turns out I am not going on vacation next week. I had hoped to go to Scandinavia, and then I thought I was going to Switzerland, and then I hoped to go to Bratislava, and then I thought about going to Italy and then on to Slovenia and Croatia, but because I have not gotten paid I do not have the financial means to travel. I am quite PO'ed at Berlin for this, because I could be enjoying my roughly 10-day vacation somewhere exciting, and you all know I love to travel. But I have to pay for law school apps--probably close to $800--and I absolutely had to pay my rent and deposit, in total 730 Euros. My German bank account had 1 Euro in it, and my American one was so low that my parents had to give me some money, unless I wanted to forget about the whole law school apps thing. I *should* get paid next week, roughly six or seven weeks after I started teaching, which in my opinion is really irresponsible on the part of the Berlin government. I wish I were getting paid directly by Fulbright--those people have already gotten paid for September AND October.

Anyway, teaching has been ok. Monday was my first conversation course, and 11 students showed up. I was quite content with the number--so many had told me they were coming, and they didn't, which made it better for allowing everyone to participate. The students seemed to like the course, even forgoing their ten-minute break to keep going. They basically spent the whole time interviewing each other with deeper questions than the standard name, age, family sort of thing, and then they shared with the class. I think more students will come to the next one, since apparently they did not know the class started this week. I'll probably teach about the American school system, as they keep asking me so many questions about it and I want to get it out of the way. The week after that I'll definitely teach them about Halloween. I wish in my other classes they let me do more--right now I'm just answering questions like "Can you say that in English?" and "How do you say such and such?" Not very challenging. I think I might step in and ask for more responsibility, even if they don't know what to do with me.

I had an interesting discussion with one of my classes yesterday about why Americans have to learn American history (one boy seemed to think it was terrible of us), and I had to point out the obvious, that they have to learn German history. Sometimes it seems like people are looking for an excuse to vilify the U.S. (or the U.S.A., as they always say--I tried to convince them that we don't really use the A all that much, but they don't believe me). The teacher fortunately pointed out that they are all biased because the media are biased, they're German, etc., and that they should put themselves in Americans' shoes. But another one of my teachers is so blatantly anti-Bush, and has made me uncomfortable several times. What am I supposed to do, openly call him out? P.S. I pray that no one from my school finds this blog. Not sure how they could?

Oh, on Monday my mom and I went to Ikea, which is a totally awesome place. I don't think I'd ever been there in the U.S. before. Seriously, there was so much cheap but not bad quality stuff. I got a bunch of things for my room, and if it weren't for my two ugly painted walls, my room might actually look nice. I'll have to see about painting over it.

Ok, that's it for now, I must actually do something productive. Tschues!