A Different World?

During the Fulbright Seminar, I attended a general ETA panel and then a separate, much smaller panel for the Diversity Program ETAs. Although I thought the DETA session was more useful and interesting, not to mention less whiny, I also felt somewhat disconnected from the others in my small group discussion.

I am one of the few Diversity ETAs who is at a Gymnasium and only at a Gymnasium. (I think 1/4 to 1/3 of the DETAs are at Gymnasien; I'd guess that about 1/2 of the ETAs in general are at Gymnasien.) The others in my group were in Grundschulen, Realschulen, or Gesamtschulen. In general, that doesn't seem like a big deal; ETAs are placed in all kinds of schools. However, I got the impression that I am one of the only DETAs who deals with diversity-related topics on a regular basis. The other DETAs said that they never (or very rarely) discussed immigration and integration issues in class, but I was on the opposite end of the spectrum: My Gymnasium made a deliberate decision to cut some units that discuss cultural and ethnic diversity because 1) the topic comes up again and again in other grades and 2) the students are sick of talking about diversity, immigration, and integration. The other DETAs in my breakout group had never discussed Sarrazin with their classes; I, on the other hand, was told to use Sarrazin and Merkel's comments as an 'ice breaker' (ha) when I met a Leistungskurs.

At the same time, we all had one thing in common: none of us were quite sure how the Diversity Program differs from the regular ETA experience. We go to classes. We help in classes. We help students prepare for the MSA. Sure, there are major demographic differences between My Gymnasium and a suburban Gymnasium, but we are not trained to address these differences. Moreover, Germany's curriculum is standardized within Bundesländer; unlike in American schools, the differences between academic standards in Gymnasien are negligible. I suspect the reason that I talk about more diversity-related issues is because it's built into the Gymnasium curriculum but is not emphasized as strongly in Realschulen, Gesamtschulen, Grundschulen, etc. (correct me if I'm wrong).

Many Germans complain that recent immigrants refuse to identify as German and stick to expatriate enclaves, but my students don't stand out as being unusually unintegrated. Many are proud of their Turkish, Afghani, Russian, Serbian, etc. ancestries and don't consider Germany to be their homeland, but most are also very forthcoming about Berlin being their home. (If you push them to go even farther in their responses, many don't consider Turkey, etc. to be their homeland, either.) Germany doesn't really have the concept of hyphenated identities that is so frequently used in the US, which complicates the identity question. Identifying as German feels like a renunciation of their heritage, and identifying as (insert ethnicity) looks like a refusal to integrate to ethnic Germans. (Let's be honest, some don't want the historical baggage that comes with identifying as German.) I think the vast majority would be more than happy to call themselves citizens of Berlin.

I've wondered if having a semi-Migrationshintergrund* myself has made the students more willing to open up to me. (Ironically, I'm more likely to identify as Korean or Korean-American when I'm in the US. I get more American when I'm abroad!)

*I'm a naturalized citizen.

**There are very few ETAs with a Migrationshintergrund.

***There is one other non-white (also Asian) American ETA in Berlin. At the beginning of the year, we went to a meet-and-greet at a 2nd year's apartment. The 2nd year asked, "Wow, your year is a lot more diverse than last year. Did they send all of the diverse people to Berlin this year?" Eek! on more than one level.

On the other hand, it's certainly not as simple as having a somewhat shared (but not really) background. I'm far from being the only person at My Gymnasium who has productive discussions about multiculturalism, immigration, and integration with classes. Of course, I don't agree with how some go about discussing integration ("You are a German citizen! You have a German passport! That means you are German!"), but no one shies away from addressing these topics.

So why aren't other schools having serious discussions about multiculturalism and integration? Why aren't they asking students to reflect on their own experiences? I thought it was very interesting how Gymnasium students seem to spend more time on diversity-related issues than students in other schools, especially since Hauptschulen (now Gesamtschulen) are often held up as examples of how integration has failed. Is it even possible to make meaningful progress in integration without honest dialogue about how the political affects the personal? I'm also very curious about how the structure of the German language may contribute to integration difficulties. Sorry, that was a totally disorganized blob of questions...

I don't know if I've met the expectations of the Diversity Program because I don't really know what they are, but I heart My Gymnasium, and I'm so lucky to have been placed there.

A Collection of Quotes

Alternate title: the story of my life in Berlin.


Situation 1: Puppy was misbehaving on a walk (wie immer), and I was calling her name.

A random man yelled a garbled version of: "Dein Hund kann dein Deutsch nicht verstehen. Du sollst Chinesisch sprechen." ("Your dog can't understand your German. You should speak in Chinese.")

- My German is better than the man's German.
- I'm a Sie, not a du.
- Hau ab (oops, Schimpfwort), I don't speak Chinese.


Situation 2: In February, I started working with four new classes, and some of the newer classes have only heard me speak English. In a 9th grade class, the students were whispering about me in German (and not very subtly).

Then, a student muttered, "Sie kann aber kein Deutsch..." ("But she can't speak German.")

"Doch." (In this sense, doch means: "Yeah, I can.")

There's nothing in life that a nice doch can't fix. The students turned several shades of red after they made the connection between my doch and my ability to understand their side conversations.


Situation 3: I took half of a 9th grade class to another room to do a conversation exercise. While they were working, another teacher came in.
"Habt ihr eigentlich eine Lehrerin?" (Do you have a teacher?) ~ the other teacher
"... Das bin ich." ("... That's me.") ~ me

The teacher apologized and said that he had seen me in the Lehrerzimmer a few times and should have recognized me. (No hard feelings; I was dressed like a student that day.) The entire class thought it was very funny.

Situation 4: I was chatting with half of a LK, and the topic of the day was Bin Laden's death.

"I don't think Bin Laden is actually dead because they didn't show any pictures or videos. I think Obama just wanted to get reelected." ~ the entire half of the LK

"Well, I think some people believe in all kinds of conspiracy theories, that is, Verschwörungstheorien, but, um, Al Qaeda also announced his death. And I don't think governments usually release pictures of dead bodies with head wounds..." ~ me

I don't want to sit through another two hours of this next week, so I'm just going to write a new lesson plan about violent rhetoric or something cheery like that...


Situation 5: I was working on gerunds with half of a 7th grade class, and I was getting frustrated because the kids kept talking. I eventually snapped and semi-yelled, "Hey Leute? Ihr seid zu laut!" One of the boys decided that it would be a brilliant idea to mock me, donned a slurring accent (which sounded more drunk than American), and said:

"Hehe ihr seid zu laaaut. Ich bin keine Muttersprachlerin von Deutsch, hehe."
"Haha, you're too louuud. I'm not a native speaker of German, haha."

My far-too-nice response was, "I don't make fun of your English, so don't make fun of my German." I lästerte about the class and the student in the Lehrerzimmer, and the other teachers actually reacted much more strongly than I did. This came right on the heels of the dog walking disaster, so meh... I'm semi-used to it by now. My new BL wrote him a Tadel because it's against my ETA contract to give out punishments. (Oh, bureaucracy. On the other hand, it's probably good that a native speaker wrote the formal letter to the mother.)

Situation 6 (which is just a funny story): One of the 10th grade classes was supposed to choose a partner for the MSA.
"You have a week to try out different partners and see which one you like best. Oh, that sounded... bad." ~ one of the English teachers

We couldn't look at each other for the rest of class without giggling. (She said that right at the end of class, so we weren't being too immature!) It also went *whoosh!* over the students' heads, even after we both cracked up. :)

Betriebsstörungen, Death Threats, and a Trip to My New BL

New BL and I have been talking about meeting up one weekend for about two months, and we finally decided to meet on Saturday at 2:30 PM. It takes about 47 minutes with the U- and S-Bahn to get to her stop. Not a big deal, right?

Yeah, well, I wasn't paying attention, so I went the wrong direction on the U-Bahn. I figured out my mistake pretty quickly, but then I had to wait another five minutes for the other U-Bahn. Then, when I got in the S-Bahn, I realized that we were moving slowly. Very slowly. We waited at one stop for about three minutes for no apparent reason (no crowds), and then we chugged along at, oh, 10 miles per hour. And then we stopped. And waited. And waited. And waited. About ten minutes later, there was an announcement that told all of us to get off, no explanation. The train left, and another S-Bahn rolled in about 5 minutes later. We boarded. And then we waited, waited, waited... and another announcement told us that there were Betriebsstörungen at Friedrichstrasse. The S-Bahn was not running in either direction.

I still don't have a functional cell phone because I can't find a place to buy minutes for my plan, so I started to look for a pay phone. During my trip up and down the platform, a woman stepped into my path and started screeching.

I think her exact (translated) quote was: "I hate you Chinese! Go away, Chinese girl! If you come closer, I'm going to knock you dead!" In most cases, this would be slightly terrifying. However, even at that exact moment, I did not feel particularly threatened. Why? Because the platform was pretty crowded, and because she was running backwards, making shooing away gestures. To put it into mass market fiction terms, it was like she was one of Dracula's minions and I was a vampire slayer with garlic, crosses, and a squirt gun full of holy water. My first reaction was to be upset at the racism, but within five minutes, my line of thought was closer to, "Hey, is the Tea Party in Germany? This is going to make a great blog post! Oh. These thoughts make me a terrible person."

(Yes, I considered yelling back, "I'm not Chinese! I'm Korean! And American!" (with a number of inappropriate words mixed in there) or shouting, "BOO!"-- but I am classy, so I smiled sweetly, turned, and walked in the other direction.)

(I realize that making fun of an obviously mentally ill person is disrespectful and full of able-bodied privilege, which is very much not classy, but, given that I was on the receiving end of a death threat, I think I earned the right to a little black humor here.)

Anyway, after walking away from Dracula Woman, I determined that there were no pay phones anywhere at the Brandenburger Tor station. (Yes, that makes this story even more random: I wasn't exactly in Marzahn. Brandenburger Tor? I wonder how many Asian tourists she had scared off that day.) So I tried the next best thing: I asked strangers if I could use their cell phones. I'd pay them, of course.

Fortunately, I chose well, and not only did a very nice family let me use their phone, but they also asked if I wanted to join them. They were riding up to the end station, and they could tell me how to get from that station to New BL's stop. Sweet.

About 45 minutes later, I arrived at New BL's Haltestelle. When I spoke with her on the stranger's cell phone, I told her that I had email access, and I had emailed her from my Kindle on the bus. I waited for about twenty minutes before checking my email and realizing that she wanted me to go directly to her apartment.

I found the correct intersection, but then I was supposed to find a specific color building. I looked to the left and to the right, and all of the buildings looked pretty darn similar to me. I ended up walking up to every door and looking at the names on the bell. Eventually, I found her name, rang her bell, and was buzzed in. And then I didn't remember which floor she lived on, so I just took the elevator halfway and checked every door until I found her name. (I knew she lived semi-close to the top, so that helped.)

I had baked some cookies before the visit, so I brought a few for New BL and her sons. New BL's younger son asked, "What are the cookies called?" "Sie heissen... chocolate chip pudding Kekse." "Wie heissen sie?" "Auf Englisch heissen sie chocolate chip pudding Kekse." Then, New BL entered the room. "Mama, wie heissen diese Kekse?" "Amerikanische Schokolade Kekse, oder? Du kannst K fragen." "Sie heissen immer noch chocolate chip pudding Kekse..."

After we finished eating cookies, her chocolate marzipan brownies (which were AMAZING), and homemade cappuccino, New BL and I went on a 90-minute tour of her Stadtteil. It's a very green and family-friendly area with a lot of parks. We also saw the Stadtteil Rathaus and two churches, and she told me the history behind the names of two sections of the Stadtteil.

When we got back, New BL started dinner (a Tunisian dish-- eggs soft boiled in tomatoes, herb potatoes, and Kiba, also known as cherry-banana juice), and she thought it would be a good idea for me to play a game with the boys. "Sie spielen gerne V. Hast du von V gehört?" ('V' was pronounced like the English letter 'V.') I claimed that I had never heard of a game called 'V' and asked how you played, just as the boys broke out their Wii system. Ha! I won the first game of bowling (beginner's luck), but they demolished me in the second round.

After dinner, we played two rounds of "Zocken," which is a dice/gambling game that was actually a lot of fun. (I lost twice.)

Fortunately, the way back to my apartment was much less eventful than the way there. The most excitement was when a drunk guy fell and dropped champagne in the U-Bahn. Of course, the champagne exploded, and everyone jumped. Fortunately, no one was close enough to get sprayed by the champagne or by the shards of broken glass.

And so ended my day.

A Collection of Anecdotes

I am super tired and don't have the brainpower to put together a coherent post, so here are a few stories from the past week or two:

After three hours of Korean, I am very happy to say that I can read pretty much everything in Korean. Of course, I can't understand anything that I read except for hello, my name, and sushi, but that's a start!

The Korean instructor loves pointing out my American accent. When I was identifying letters of the alphabet, she said, "Ha, you can already hear K's American accent at this stage!" This would be amusing if she pointed out the other students' German accents, but she doesn't... and even *I* can hear where their German accents sneak in. On the other hand, the instructor was impressed with my ability to pronounce the R/L sound; she says the American R is closer to the Korean R/L than the German R.

My German class highlights the fact that my speaking ability lags behind my writing ability. I took 18 months off German while I was focusing on English, which exacerbated the gap. To be fair, it might also just be a K-issue, because I have similar problems in English! On top of this, the professor only calls on me when I'm spacing out... and I'm pretty attentive in classes. Crap. I don't know how she does it.

A few weeks ago, Dumpling knocked on my door, handed me a bowl of grapes, and said, "Danke, dass du so gut auf mich aufpasst." (Rough translation: Thank you for babysitting me so well.) Awwww. When he's not a monster, he's oh-so-cute.

Some of my friends and I decided to check out a Halloween party that someone mentioned through the Fulbright listserv. Let's just say that you know a party is a dud when *I* walk out after two minutes because it's too boring.

It is very interesting to see how different people from different countries react to me being an Asian-American. My students (predominantly from the Middle East) asked, "Where are you really from?" A Russian teaching assistant did a double take when she heard me blabbing away in English and said, "You're speaking American English!" A Chinese teaching assistant said, "Excuse me for asking, but do you have Asian heritage?" (Heh. It's nice to hear an attempt at PCness, but come on.) Another American Fulbrighter asked, "Did you always know you were adopted?" (When I'm standing near my parents, I like to say that I got all of the recessive genes. My parents have brown hair and blue eyes.)

I'm getting annoyed with German bluntness. In some ways, it's great-- I don't expect one of my WG-mates to blow up over something trivial just because she has been waiting to tell me off for the past few months. No, most Germans wouldn't do that. Instead, they provide you with a running commentary of everything that you are doing wrong.

For example, one of my WG-mates told me that she couldn't tell that I cleaned and that since my mother probably did all of the cleaning at home (hello, sexism), I should watch and help her clean this weekend so I can learn how to do it the "right" way. This was after she stuck her head in the bathroom and told me that I was cleaning things in the wrong order. See, you can't mop the floor before you clean the sink and the tub. Clearly. I pulled a passive-aggressive move of my own: I showed up in her room with a piece of notebook paper and a pen and told her to give me explicit directions on what things to clean, which cleaning solutions to use, and in what order I should do everything. It still didn't get me out of "How to Clean the WG 101."

I also got a note that said, 'Please don't leave dishes in the sink.' I did not leave dishes in the sink. Don't blame the dumb American for all of your woes...

Yet another story: I wanted to make soup for dinner. I was poking through the kitchen and making a list of what I needed to buy, and the same WG-mate said, "I don't know if we've discussed this earlier, but you really shouldn't use things that other people have bought. For example, I bought this lettuce, and I am going to eat it for dinner, and if you use it, then I won't have my dinner." I agree to an extent, but my WG-mates ate almost everything that I bought during my last trip to the grocery store: both of my cucumbers, an apple, some of my broccoli, all of *my* lettuce, the last of my cheese, all but three of my organic potatoes, and even my frozen spinach. Hypocrite.

In other news, according to an informal survey of the Fulbrighters in Germany, 85% of us identify as moderate to very liberal, and 65.9% strongly disapprove of the Tea Party. Only 10% believe that the Republican party best represents their political leanings. Who's surprised? Not me!

The Festival of Lights and a Catch-up Post

For the most part, Berlin is not a pretty or romantic city. As I think I've mentioned before, it lives up to Klaus Woworeit's quotation: "Berlin ist arm, aber sexy" (Berlin is poor, but sexy). However, the Festival of Lights makes Berlin sparkle, shine, and glow-- quite literally.

Brandenburger Tor

I walked around downtown with S and T on Saturday night. We started at Alexanderplatz, took pictures of the Fernsehturm, took pictures of the Berliner Dom, walked down Unter den Linden, walked a mile to Brandenburger Tor, saw the American Embassy building, saw a few random hotels, and called it a night after walking to the Bundestag and realizing that it didn't have a light show. (We also ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant that is about a gazillion times better than Chipotle. I got a vegetarian burrito with mole tofu! It was the first dish that I've had in Berlin that was actually spicy!) Then, H Skyped me on Sunday afternoon and asked if I wanted to take pictures downtown... and off we went again! It turns out that some of the attractions had already turned off their lights, but we went to Brandenburger Tor and ended up at Gendarmenmarkt to take pictures of the gorgeous square.

Monday was my first day of classes. I signed up for a German C1 class to refresh my grammar and to meet other international students, and I think it will be really helpful. Even on the first day, the teacher was giving us lists of verbs and synonyms, and pointing out which words are more or less formal. My word of the day is "aufpolieren" (to dust off). For example: Ich habe diesen Kurs belegt, weil ich auf meinem geroesteten Deutsch aufpolieren wollte (I took this class because I wanted to brush up on my rusty German). (I think it's a dative preposition in this case.) I also signed up for a Korean class, which meets on Fridays. Yay for working on my fourth language! (Not that you can really call my command of French a third language... but hey, I'm doing a little French aufpolieren on the side. Give me some credit; I'm an American!) (Wow, I'm using and abusing parentheses today.)

Today was the first day where I felt like my teaching was subpar. Usually, I'm pretty good at controlling classes, introducing terms and concepts in an interactive manner, and all of that fun stuff, but it just did not click today. I made a handout for a Leistungskurs with a fake schedule from an American high school and a list of school rules; I thought that would get them talking. The problem is that I never pushed the discussion beyond the most superficial level, and I really should have emphasized that my high school is not representative of many American high schools. For example, most schools have not banned hoodies due to the possibility of students hiding weapons in hoods. I may have gone to Miami, but I did not attend one of the nicer school districts. In fact, Teach For America places in my school district.

On top of that, the 7th graders were loud and crazy, and only half of them accomplished anything during the period... and then I had to give an introduction to the Great Depression in a Grundkurs. Here's the problem: I really don't know that much about the Great Depression. The sad fact is that we covered it in one day in 11th grade. I was 15 years old. That was seven years ago (oh my gosh, I feel old), and I don't remember anything from that lesson. So, yeah, I knew it wasn't going to be a pretty lesson going into class, and then I learned in the first 10 seconds that the students didn't know the word for "stock market" (Boerse). As I said, it wasn't a good lesson.

Another student konnichiwa-ed at me today. I gave him my teacher glare and said, "I'm not Japanese." Apparently, I'm getting scarier, because he slunk over to me later and apologized.

Weekly Update

A few unrelated thoughts from the past week and a half:
- I'm getting very good at telling off people and animals in German (I practice a lot on Puppy). I snapped at a student who decided to bow, make slanty eyes, and greet me in Chinese. At least it actually was "ni hao" and not "ching chong." If you're going to be offensive, you might as well do it properly.

- I got to teach an entire Leistungskurs! This really shouldn't be so exciting because I've led more than my share of college classes, but it was the first time that I taught a potentially 'touchy' topic. We talked about 'Otherness,' and I used a vignette from The House on Mango Street, which went over really well. What surprised me was how willing the students were to share their experiences and thoughts... and they nailed it. I barely needed to prompt them-- they brought up problematic comments in the vignette; they bounced around ideas about how Otherness reflects dominant privilege (okay, they didn't use the phrase 'dominant privilege'... after all, they're 16, and they're learning English as their third language); and they just plain understood the text. I am no longer in Miamiland-- I am teaching in a school in a low-income neighborhood, where 70% of the students are Muslim, where 70% of the students are not ethnic Germans, and where they are confronted with racism, classism, and xenophobia on a daily basis.

- Are my students perfect? Oh, no, they are not. Anti-Semitism is a significant issue at My Gymnasium. I think one of my future lesson plans will involve parsing the differences between governments and people.

- Fall break is lovely. I went to the zoo with J and spent the entire day wandering around the animal exhibits and walking through the aquarium. German zoos seem to have much less stringent fencing rules-- it's possible to hop the fence and walk into most of the exhibits if you really want to. Also, the lions have individual cages inside (and, of course, an outdoor area), and the cages do not have solid sides. The zoo authorities thought ahead, though, and posted a sign to warn visitors: "Lions may spray urine through the fence." I also went to the botanical garden with J, H, and E.

- I love my mom's chocolate chip cookies. Best recipe ever, I'm telling you.

Je parle l'anglais, l'allemand, et... le français?

I've reached a pivotal moment in my German language acquisition: I'm at the point where both my German and English are getting worse. Since this has always preceded a sudden, significant jump in my speaking ability, I'd like to say that I'm excited about this-- but I'm mostly just annoyed that I'm babbling nonsense in two languages. I am, however, extremely excited about one recent development: after years of German, a semester in Munich, and even being made fun of in a German class at Miami (by a professor, nonetheless), I can roll my Rs on occasion. YES!

When I introduce myself to new classes-- and I met three more classes this week (one of which I'm assigned to; two of which I visited to say hello)-- I give the standard, "My name is Ms. A. I'm the English foreign language assistant at My Gymnasium for this school year. I'm from the United States, and I live about four hours south of Big City" spiel and then ask if they have any questions. In 9 of the 11 classes that I visited, the questions were pretty basic-- how old am I; am I still in school; what do I want to do when I grow up? But those 10th graders... they are inquisitive!

A few questions that they asked:
- What sports do you do? ("I do gymnastics, and I also figure skate a little." A girl in the front said, "I KNEW IT" auf Deutsch after the figure skating part, which is... odd... considering that I've only been skating for about a year and a half.)

- What's your favorite fast food? ("I don't eat any meat, so I don't really eat fast food. Does Subway count? And does falafel count?" The falafel comment led to a kind of fascinating tangent about 'American' and 'German' food. I forget how I got to this comment, but I definitely remember saying, "You know what Germany doesn't have? Good Mexican food. No offense, but your Mexican food is awful. But the US doesn't have Turkish food-- no doeners! We should trade-- we'll teach you how to make salsa if you give us some falafel stands." I also remember the students agreeing that 'German' food is always represented by Bayerisch specialities and that German-ness is often falsely represented by cultural aesthetics from the south. They're so smart!) Oh, and I did find a good Mexican restaurant in Berlin.

- What do you think of Obama? ("I definitely prefer Obama to Bush and McCain <*smile*>, but I don't agree with everything that he has done. Or what he hasn't done.")

- What do you think of the death penalty? (I explained that I was morally opposed to the death penalty and that even from an economic standpoint, life in prison without parole is the better option.)

- What do South Koreans think of North Koreans? ("Well, I haven't lived in South Korea since I was a baby, so I'm not sure I can really answer this question. I think I would say that South Koreans don't have anything against the North Korean people, but they disagree with the North Korean government." This kid also got a glare from the teacher for that question.)

- Are black people discriminated against in the US? What about Asian people? (So, so, so hard to answer this question succinctly in simple sentences. I settled for something like, "Discrimination still exists in the United States. The US was still segregated about forty years ago, so it has improved a lot... but there are still problems." I also mentioned 'driving while black' and discrimination in hiring. As for the "Asian people" question, I said that the stereotype of Asians is that they're hardworking and smart, so Asians tend to face less overt discrimination in hiring practices and criminalization.)

and, of course, an insensitive question that everyone wonders:

- Where are you really from? ("I'm from the United States.") No, where are you actually from? (I was quite surprised at the other students' reactions; I had been asked that question in almost every class, and the 10b was the first to smack down the question asker. You can't ask that! That's rude! She said she was American!

I really did have a wonderful conversation with the 10bs-- they asked questions for the full 45 minutes, with the teacher's approval ("I want to ask Ms. A some questions, too!"). After responding to the "Where are you really from" question, I diverted the conversation by pointing to my experience as a German as Foreign Language learner and asked how many of them learned German as a foreign language. I also asked if any of them were like me-- identifying as German but born in another country. As a complete nerd, I thought the answers were fascinating: 2 students are native speakers of Russian (one born in Russia; one in Kyrgyzstan), 1 is a native speaker of Mandarin, 1 of Cantonese, 1 of Vietnamese (born in Vietnam), 1 of Polish, and only 1 of Turkish. Hmm, I'm forgetting one or two languages. Anyway, there are only 18 students in that class-- the diversity at My Gymnasium is really remarkable!

My favorite question: "Do you speak French?" One of the other students looked at the question asker and said something like, "Why would you ask that? Of course she doesn't!" I smiled, always glad to disprove stereotypes of Americans, and said that I took French for a semester in college and would like to sit in on some French classes at My Gymnasium. I'm still kicking myself for not responding, "J'ai étudié le français pendant quatre mois, mais je ne parle pas très bien français." I think that would have given me some serious street cred. :)

But that's okay-- I had built up my German street cred already by drawing a super simplified comparison of the major American and German political parties. Their eyes actually widened when I started plotting the CDU and SPD on the graph, and they were shocked when I added Die Linke, Die Grünen, and the NPD.

No, actually, I lied; there was a better question: "Well, I'm not sure how to put this, but you look very slim, but in the US, when you go to restaurants, you get so much more food, and everything in stores is bigger... so how are you so slim?" (HAHAHA!)