Third and Fourth Day of Class!

Wednesday, Oct. 10th 

Today I only had one class. It was taught by Selma (my boss). In addition to taking her class on Culture and Technology, I am also taking a course with her about progress narratives in American literature. I've got even more reading to do now! Luckily, I'm familiar with most of the stuff we are will be reading. I was kind of bummed out that we are covering The Great Gatsby. I mean, it's a great book, but I had a class last semester where we  discussed it in depth. This is in addition to the two months we spent on the book in 10th grade. So yeah, by the end of this year, I will be a Gatsby expert (and will probably not want to ever hear about it for another 10 years). 

We are also looking at The Yellow Wallpaper and A Rose For Emily. Guess who had a short story class last semester that dealt with these two? If you guessed "Joanna" then you are a correct! Guess who also covered these stories their senior year of high school? If you guessed "Joanna" you are correct again! Good guessing! Oh well, I shouldn't complain, at least the stories are interesting, and I will have a lot of background knowledge/experience to bring to the discussion.

After class, I was free for the day. So, naturally, I went to the TKmaxx. I wasn't really looking for anything, I just wanted to browse some more. I was also in town collecting souvenirs to take home. I'll only be home for a week, but I am catching up with a lot of people, and I don't want to show up empty-handed. 

I also sampled some more German cuisine! Right next to the waffle stand, there is a Kamp's, which is a major bakery chain in Germany. I had passed this place many times, and it was time to try something. I spotted a a beef sausage wrapped in a cheese covered preztel. This was what I decided on, it was listed as a "Bobby," I'm not really sure who or what that is, but it was delicious nonetheless. 

That's it for today, Schüss!

German Word of the Day: Der Honig- "honey" I like my tea with der Honig, but some people prefer sugar.

Thursday, Oct. 11th

Today I had my first discussion group. It was at 8:30 am, so I had to be up a little earlier that usual. My class only has 7 people in it, so it's manageable. Selma told us that the course was more popular in the Summer Semester, and we could have up to 30 people in our groups! So this is a nice preparation for that. We only had to do Icebreakers today, and I think they all enjoyed it. The point of the groups is to discuss what was taught in class that week, but the main objective is for them to practice their English.

For their icebreaker, they were supposed to interview their neighbor, and one of the questions gave them trouble. It said to describe yourself in three words. Only two of them actually came up with adjectives. The rest left it blank and told me it was "hard to limit someone's character/life in just 3 words." Wow. These are some deep thinkers here. They also didn't like the question that asked who you would choose to be if you could be anyone else in the world. I don't think a single person came up with a response. They said "Why would I want to be someone else? I am content with who I am and don't think you should spend your life wishing you were someone else." Wow again. I thought it was an innocent enough question, but apparently not. When it was my turn I told them that I'd like to be Homer from The Simpsons or maybe Indiana Jones. They laughed and I felt better about them loosening up.

We got done early (since they skipped two of the questions), but Selma told us to try and avoid letting them go super early. So I had to stall. Which, by the way, is not all that easy when no one talks back. I asked them what their preconceptions about America were and the only response I got was "spring break." I couldn't get them to tell me what their dream jobs were either. One boy did respond, but didn't know the right English word for it. He finally got fed up searching for the word and said "I want to destroy things!" It made me laugh so hard (he laughed too, so I didn't feel bad for laughing at him). I asked if he meant like a building demolition person. In the end, we figured out he is studying to be an engineer that tests the strength of materials like steel and plastics used in airplanes or other industrial objects. In order to test this strength, eventually the steel or whatever is destroyed. It sounded like a really cool job, if I had any math or science skills, that's the type of engineer I would want to be. After successfully stalling for 10 long minutes, I finally let them go. I think it was a good first session, everyone participated and seemed to get along.

After this, I had my class on British Horror. This, along with the Fantasy Bestsellers course, was the class I was most looking forward too. Ann-Kathrin is also registered for this one, so I got to sit next to her.  The teacher was really high energy and you could tell he was passionate about his subject. We will be watching a lot of horror films in this class. I don't really care for scary movies and usually only watch them in the daytime with the volume turned way down, so it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to be taking this class.

However, I really like horror and mystery novels, so maybe it will balance out. Ann-Kathrin isn't so big on horror movies either, so at least I will have a fellow scaredy-cat to commiserate with. There are also two 15-page essays due throughout the course. I was not so excited about this, but the teacher said one of the essays could be substituted with a field trip. The field trip would be a to an amusement park that opens at night during the month of October. It's very similar to Scarowinds back home.  I didn't know what to think. A field trip? Instead of an essay? Um, yes please! Of course, we have to write a short paper on our trip to the amusement park that relates back to what we have learned in class. Either way, I am super-excited to try this out.

When class was over, I had some time to kill. I decided to change sections of the language course since I only have one class on Thursday. Plus all my friends from the beginners course were in the Thursday section, and I missed all of them. It's not that I didn't learn anything in the engineering section on Tuesday, but I just felt more comfortable in this class. I showed up and was lucky enough to get an open spot.  We covered the past-perfect tense today. It was intense (another pun!), and I will definitely have to look over my notes a few times to remember everything.

It was a long day, the language class lasts until 8 at night, so I think I will wrap it up. Schüss!

German Word of the Day: Gestern- "yesterday" Gestern, all my troubles seemed so far away.