The past few days have been pretty uneventful, mostly WG searching and observing classes at school. The good news is that I finally found a WG, even though it wasn't exactly my top choice. (I'm sharing an apartment with three women-- non-students, I think-- and a boy who looks like he's about 7.)
Classes have been pretty... well, nonexistent. I usually have Monday off, but I went to school to talk to some teachers and to observe a class or two. Afterwards, I went WG searching and visited two places that seemed relatively decent.
On Tuesday, I was supposed to observe in two classes, but one was canceled due to electing their version of student government. I ended up in the 7c (it might have been 7d), where I gave a make-up quiz to a few students and then observed the rest of the lesson. Then I went WG searching again. The first one was sketchy and kind of gross (plus, I'd be living with a 60-year-old man-- sorry, no thanks), but I was offered the room at the second WG on the spot. (I think it's because I played with the dog-- she said that she found me ganz sympathisch, or very likeable.) Even though it wasn't my top choice, I said yes on the spot-- the rent is perfect, the location is decent (a little far from the school, but the area is awesome), and people seemed nice. Too bad I'm allergic to dogs.
Classes were also canceled today due to the Sportfest, which is about what it sounds like in English (field day). My Mentor had to meet the 5b class at 7:45 to walk them to the stadium in the park, so I decided to go with her to learn names. (When your school assigns you to 10 different classes with 9 different teachers, you really can't pass up opportunities to get a little one-on-one time with kids. We were under strict orders to learn students' names as quickly as possible, but I think most Fulbrighters only work with 3-5 classes.)
Field day wasn't nearly as fun as it could have been. The kids only had three events-- throwing a ball, a 50m sprint (which replaced long jump at the last minute due to the weather), and a relay race (in which only 12 students per class could participate)-- and it lasted four hours in Berlin's wet and cold-for-September weather. I told some of the other teachers about events that my elementary school had at field day-- like racing across a field with an egg in a spoon or doing a water balloon toss. The general consensus among the teachers: total waste of time.
Some of the girls chatted with me on the way back to school. I think they started English in 3rd grade; there's no way that this is their first year of English. Like earlier, we communicated in a mixture of English and German-- not Denglish, but alternating between sentences in both languages. For example, I asked one of them why her hands were bright orange, and she told me (in English) that it was henna and explained (in German) that it's a Muslim tradition to henna your hands (is henna a verb?) at weddings. All of them agreed that I really need to visit Turkey at some point-- they visit family there every summer.
Even though the Sportfest wasted an entire school day, I really did like spending a little time with the 5b-- they are cute. (Also a little wild.) I'm pretty sure that I have all of the girls' names down, and I've learned about half of the boys' names (there are 9 girls in the class and about 16 boys). Of course, I'm not convinced that I'm pronouncing some of them correctly; in fact, one girl ran to My Mentor and told her that I couldn't say her name. So, to all of the Gülçins and Müjdats (not their real names) in my classes, I apologize in advance for butchering your names. :)
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