Post Pizza (P)thoughts

I hope this post will commemorate the beginning of more frequent blogging. I'm really sorry for the inconsistency (read:disappearance) over the past many months. I like to write and I've gotten out of the habit. I'm going to try and force myself to write regularly so help remind myself why I like it so much.

My aunt always says that good things come from being bored- creative things, innovative things. For me, I think good things come from being lonely, or perhaps alone is a better word, since alone doesn't have the same melancholy intonation. Overall, I haven't felt very lonely in Rimbach, but I have spent a lot of time alone.

Its a stark change compared to overly-scheduled and -social Olaf life, but its been oddly refreshing. Although I consider myself a social person, and perhaps an extrovert, I really love the time when I do things by myself. I like being alone. I like the things I find to do while I am alone. I like the energy I find within myself to take control of my own happiness. And as I am further imbedded into the Rimbach/MLS community, I am learning that alone time is no longer being forced upon me as often. And I find myself missing that carefree attitude of "I can do whatever I want because if I don't do something, I won't be doing anything." And thats a very liberating feeling.

As the liberating feeling of aloneness has declined, the empowering feelings of belonging and acceptance has increased. I don't have as much time alone, because I have found more and more people here that I want to spend time with and get to know. I've found people I can relate to and know that they understand who I am, and that has made all the difference in my experience here. School life hasn't changed, but the way I approach it has (who saw that coming?...). I've accepted more of the German school culture for what it is and stopped fighting students as much for talking in class. I've accepted that I will make mistakes and that doesn't mean I'm a bad person (although I need to be reminded to forgive myself more often). I feel more confident in my ability to be a teacher and confidence to make a decision on my own.

I think the biggest frustrations currently are: time management (knowing how long to spend on each part of the lesson), motivating lazy students (#ephase) and controlling disobedient students (eighth graders).

Today, Monday, I spent the first two hours of the day trying to make 15 and 16 year olds talk to me. In the third hour, I had a very nice time with my 9th graders, but should we have discussed the h/w in 10 minutes instead of 25? Am I creating a relaxed classroom environment, or an unproductive one? In the fourth hour I tried in vain to pull together a last minute lesson plan on the Superbowl to sugar coat the fact that I was going to teacher Gerunds for the 4th day in a row to my 8th graders. In the Pause, I got laughed at by a handful of 7th grade boys during Aufsicht. In the fifth hour, I lost my patience within the first five minutes of class and in the last five, gave a completely pointless punishment pop quiz on vocab that students "should have learned" over the weekend. I left school feeling dumb and ineffective today.

After school, I took the Katzer family up on their never ending, open invitation to stop by whenever and joined them for lunch. I love being at their house and I always leave feeling happy. With four daughters under the age of 13 running around, its always a good dose of family time.

I indulged in a pizza delivery this evening for the first time and watched this weeks SNL with an IPA a bought in Berlin that I realized, after drinking half, had expired. So, mostly a win of an evening. And now I'm writing this post. And wondering if I am going to lesson plan before falling asleep......

Anyway, I feel this nagging obsession to feel like I'm telling the whole story on this blog, and it somehow never feels like it even captures the essence of why I love my life here. My mission for the next month is to capture those moments in writing.

Who Owns a Language?

In Intro to Cultural Anthropology freshmen year, Tom Williamson asked us if its possible to ever really be fluent in a language. I dismissed his question immediately. Ja, duh. I'm fluent in English. Case in point. Then he went on to say that he is certainly not fluent in Physics. Or anything related to football culture. I had to agree, neither was I, but how well do you have to know a language to be considered fluent? Although frustrated at the time with Tom's question, his conversation helped prepare me for learning German abroad. I understand that fluency isn't a constant, its fluid. Fluid enough in a language to be able to adapt to never before discovered vocabulary or grammar structures.

I've never been one for memorizing grammar rules. I liked memorizing vocabulary, but that was mostly in comparison to learning grammar. My solution to mastering German has been repetitively living in the country. Its much easier to try and pick up on a language as a baby would than sitting with a textbook.

They say living in a country is the best way to learn, but there is a flaw in that logic when 85% of the country (ballpark figure) is "fluent" in English. And 99% of that 85% REALLY love speaking English. Its a rare occasion I meet someone new and they learn I'm American and they don't try and say something in, if not switch the entire conversation into, English. Or worse, they very sweetly and in a generous voice let me know that they speak English and we can just speak in English (because thats probably easier, right?).

Am I exaggerating? Perhaps a bit.

However, I honestly feel panic-y sometimes when talking with other people I know speak English because I'm just waiting for the moment when they revert back to English. Or the moment they'll lose patience with my jumbly opinion and ask me to repeat it in English. Or I won't understand what they've said, and instead of repeating it a different way in German, they'll say it in English. I feel physically distressed even writing this. I know the don't mean to insult my intelligence, but thats how it feels. They don't realize what its like trying to learn another language when everyone else already speaks yours.

How many times have you heard people say, "if you want to learn a language, you need to live there; you need to immerse yourself"? This is such a commonly understood fact, yet I have to fight for my right to speak German. That's how I feel. I have to fight my own laziness for I know I could be well understood in English and I have to fight the determined will of the German nation to practice and perfect their English.

I don't live in a host family. When I'm at home, I'm in my own English brain. Then I'm teaching English in class. Or lesson planning. 50% of my day is going to be, without much choice, in English.
Which means that any conversation in German during the day is highly valued and highly appreciated.

I know I can be unjustifiably sassy about this topic. Probably because I never confront people about it and just let it boil.

Because, what right do I have to say what language we should speak? How is that wholly my choice? A conversation, a relationship, is more than one person. Because at this point, I really feel like Germans own the English language (what does "own" even mean? ... ) Americans don't own English and if the British did, they certainly don't now. English- the global language. Its not American English- the global language, or BE for that matter. Germans have their own way of using the English language that is different than how I would (not wrong, just different). English is fluid, too.

So do I have the right to say I only want to be spoken to in German?

That Time I Thought a Lot and Wrote Nothing

I'm embarrassed. I haven't written in months. Much has happened and I partially regret not documenting it at the time. I love patterns and consistency, and I broke my blogging pattern. I was angry and frustrated at times, and afraid I'd write something that I would later regret, so I didn't write anything at all.

October brought letters to 8th grade parents, the much awaited conclusion of a NYC travel project, and a wonderful 2 week vacation full of old friends and swiss alps.
November brought strong emotions: frustration, indignation, disrespect and immaturity; but also respect and appreciation. It brought new relationships, mentors, friends. It brought kale, and lots of it. It brought a week long trip to Berlin and a holiday concert in a castle. It brought acceptance. It brought grammar lessons. It brought honest conversations. It brought resilience.
December brought a little bit of snow, soup recipes and reassuring words. It brought a good friend with sound wisdom. It brought teacher conferences. It brought Haribo. It brought pranks. It brought time spent with families. It brought IPAs. It brought a visa. It brought a flight home to Massachusetts for the holidays.

I returned home (?) from Massachusetts this morning after a 3 week vacation in the US. My good friend Lena, bless her, picked me up so I didn't have to battle the Deutschebahn system with all my luggage. I couldn't have packed more. Granted, much of the weight was from gifts and consumable goods such as baking soda, chocolate chips, vanilla and powdered cheese (I saved weight by leaving the box of macaroni at home), I know come July I will be regretting the accumulation of belongings I've transported to Germany.

I guess there's a lot I want to say right now, but I don't know how yet.
I mainly wanted to reopen my blog up tonight so that the next time I have something I want to write about, I won't hesitate trying to summarize the last 3 months.

I'm trying to catch my breathe this weekend from the holidays and travel. I'm also trying to finish all my grading. I'm not dreading school, but I wish I was walking back with a real plan of how to change things. I've talked to enough people about 8th graders over the vacation that I know I can't keep troubling myself with how frustrating they can be. Its the age, and not all my fault. But I still need to figure out how to manage an effective classroom, and thats the knowledge I wish I was walking into school with on Monday.

The best part about coming back, was knowing that I haven't even reached the half way point yet. I have more time in Rimbach ahead of me, than I have lived previously. That, I find very uplifting.

Looking For Halloween Memories

Hey Everyone Who Reads This Blog,

Would you like to share a memory from Halloween with my 8th graders? I have a double period with my 8th on Halloween and this seems like a wonderful time to share this part of American childhood culture. I was envisioning getting interested family and friends (and blog readers) to write a 300-500 word memory, story, reflection type thing about how they celebrated Halloween (pre-college memories would probably be best, mind you). The 8th graders' English is quite good (better than most Americans' foreign language is at 8th grade), but maybe imagine writing for an American 5th grader. Have fun writing the memory, but don't get too fancy with the sentence structure :)

I'm imagining stories like... favorite costume, memories of making or going out to buy costumes, the year you discovered the best candy route, the year your sister stole all your snickers bars and left you smarties, how long you made your candy last, the year your parents told you that you were too old to trick or treat, the neighbor who yelled at your for going trick or treating when you were in high school (...), the scariest haunted house etc. Anything you want to share! It could also be a memory after childhood about handing out candy. I was envisioning mostly trick or treating stories, but if you have a pumpkin carving story or creating a haunted house story or any other tradition you want to share, be my guest!

Please feel free to share this request with anyone you know who might want to write something. It literally makes no difference to me who it is or how old they are. Basically, I am creating my own textbook for this day and since no one ever knows the people in textbooks, anyone willing to write something is more than welcome!

If you are comfortable sharing, I'd like to have your name, age, and city/state where you lived at the time of the story. I think it might be nice for the students to have some context of who wrote their story and also will show the possible similarities and differences between places in the US.

Please email me at : molly.g.mcdermott@gmail.com

I would love to have these all collected by Oct. 28th at the latest :)

Thank you in advance!

Foiled by Stickers

There is this cool promotion going on at Edeka (grocery store) right now. It seems like something that happens regularly or perhaps at multiple grocery stores, I don't know. They have these books you can buy (for a reasonable price of 1.99) to fill with stickers of all the different animals, reptiles, insects and plants in Germany. Every time you spend more than 10 euoros at Edeka, you get 4 stickers. Hanna Schmitt informed me of this little collectors game last week and I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical. However, I whimsically bought the book this weekend and have no regrets. Its great! Next to each picture, there is a detailed description of the animal and what region of Germany they come from, what the eat, their behavior etc. The book is divided by region, too, so I can specifically go to the section on the Odenwald if I wanted to. AND! it is a partnership with the WWF. AND! it comes with an extra "Abenteuerbuch"(adventure book) to prepare me for going out in the wilderness and also how to make drums and wind chimes out of old pieces of wood. Besides, as I justified to myself, I am learning about Germany, creating a hobby, and bonding with my neighbors all in the same gig.

Hanna and Caroline were happy to hear I joined their trend, and I was especially pleased when Caroline asked me through a grin if I had any doubles yet. Doubles? I asked. Yeah, like the same sticker twice. Ohhhh. So apparently this is a trading game too. School children stock pile the stickers they have more than one of, and than trade with their friends at school. Sadly, I am too much of a beginner to have much to offer, but all the same, Hanna offered to give me her remaining fox stickers to complete my series.

Today I went to buy dip making supplies (sidenote: I have never made nor watched anyone make dip before. It was a quasi stressful situation. I skyped my mom) at Edeka and thought I would buy some stickers, too. Afterall, I want to be a fair trader in the game of German Animal Sticker Collecting, but apparently you can't buy the packets. I had envisioned a sort of supplementary packet you could buy in the case that you didn't spend over ten euros. As I was trying to phrase my question to the cashier, I couldn't remember the name for sticker in German. Low and Behold, it is also "sticker", but I was fussing around trying to say something with "kleber" and not making much sense, meanwhile a line started forming, and the cashier says to me "Uh, English?". Then she explains to me, in English, that you cannot purchase stickers, you can only receive them complementary after a ten euro or more purchase. Then she proceeded to give me a packet of stickers anyway, even though I had only spent 7 euros.

So in conclusion, possibly the first time someone in Rimbach has stopped my German to speak English was over the word sticker and a silly collectors game. Egal.

Straws to Blessings

Today was a bit rough. I almost wrote a post earlier this afternoon, but for a number of reasons, including the fact that I often write about the bad things, I decided not to. But I must say, that I think I write about the hard things more often because those are the things that really make me think. I'm sort of obsessed with what I like to call "imbetterment"- the process of making things better. So when things are bad, I can obsess about them until I find a way to improve them. This is not to be confused with perfectionism... its quite different you see.

Coming home from school today I was feeling pretty fed up with my 8th graders and frustrated at myself for the type of teacher I've been. I still haven't created a class room environment that is disciplined and organized in a way that both the students and I can depend on. I am not holding them accountable for their work or behavior because I can't find a way to make them see the kind of expectations I have (other than scolding, which I think I knew already wasn't an effective strategy). I'm embarrassed to admit that many of my 8th graders don't respect me. I don't think I am being walked over, but I can tell that they are not taking me seriously either. And when I don't know things like how long the breaks between classes are or the policy on giving homework, its easy to see why they wouldn't take me seriously.

I also feel embarrassed that my feelings are getting hurt when they are disrespectful in class because I know its a sign that I'm still immature. Immature enough to be hurt when a student snickers at my German, for example, or immature enough that I avoid walking home during lunch to avoid crossing paths with my students on their way to the train. And I'm embarrassed more so because I feel like I need to prove myself as a teacher at MLS. Both because of my age and because my lack of experience. I don't want to be seen as more immature than I already feel. I know 22 is young to teach in the United States, but I know plenty of people doing it. But teaching at 22 is unheard of in Germany. Its not possible even, because the "Lehramp" program takes at least 5 years.

So I'm publicly confessing all of my fears to you dear blog readers, whoever you are, and hopefully I won't regret doing so in the future. I actually do wonder about the people who follow the blog. The ominousness of your identities keeps me from saying everything I'm feeling, actually. Plus, the internet isn't exactly a private place.

Anyway, back to straws and blessings. Earlier today, I was "counting straws", but this afternoon, I am counting blessings. I feel dumb even saying that because its reminiscent of the blatant moral lessons in Bearstein Bears and 7th Heaven, but it made for a nice comparison to describe my day.

Monday is the busy day. The everything-in-one-day day. And today was capped off with a 9th grade Vertretung Stunde, too. I went home for lunch, counted some straws, drank some coffee. and then headed back to school for Center Stage, the English theater group. I always leave in a better mood than I come. So thats a blessing. So is Herr Wecht, a Hausmeister at the school, who somehow always knows when I'm feeling down (today) and pulls me into his office for chocolate. But the real turn around in my day, was running into a girl in my conversation class after Center Stage. We sat and talked outside the school for a bit before walking to the train station together. I think we connected so well because her parents are each from South Africa and England, but some how decided to live in Germany, and so like  me, shares a piece of "outsiderness" (plus it helped that I was also raised on a number of odd British TV shows so we had some common history). Please don't be offended dear German readers, but it felt really good to laugh with someone about the oddities of German culture. And especially in uncensored English, at my normally (barely understandably fast) speed. It was just an unexpected blessing in my day and a very much appreciated one after the morning I had.

The weekend was full of blessings, too, which reminded me how happy I am to be in Germany. School is hard sometimes, and I am honestly looking for constructive feed back versus positive encouragement, but I have many things to be happy about.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

On Friday, I say an Arabic film called ( in German) "Das Maedchen Wadjda" with Christina and her boyfriend Dani. A really excellent film, we all thought. I love going to the movies, and especially in tiny theaters like in Hemsbach. It might be my new favorite theater. Before or after the film you can sit in the dinning room/lobby area and drink something.

On Saturday I took a sort of impromptu trip to Heidelberg to visit my former host family that I stayed with for 3 weeks in high school. My exchange partner visited me 4 years ago, and I came to Heidelberg 2 years ago, so the relationship is still strong. I'm really happy that it could work this weekend. Although my exchange partner wasn't home, I spent a wonderful day with her dad and brother. Props to Gunther for taking me all over the Altstadt to find Hausschuhe, Strumfhosen, Nagleknipser and Shampoo. I love visiting because he is always excited to take me places and do things with me. Even though Saturday's events were spent running errands, the day was special because we ate cake from one of my favorite bakeries, ate classic German food in an old Heidelberg restaurant, and walked around the Altstadt in the evening eating Eis. Knowing that I have that home in Germany is one reason why I don't feel homesick. 

Here's a picture of me from this weekend in front of the restaurant in HD

And this is me from March 2009 on my last night in Heidelberg at the same restaurant. 

I had another cultural experience this weekend in Fuerth. Here I am eating "Kochkase mit Musik"for the first time, and a glass of apple wine to go with it! For the past 7 weeks I have been asked regularly if I have tried Kochkase yet, an Odenwald speciality. Kochkase mit Musik means the cheese is served with onions. I can't say I'm totally on the Kochkase train.... but I think I could start liking it. I would describe it as sort of chewy, glue that you can eat...

Linda Johnke- guest teacher at MLS 10 years ago, now lives in Fuerth and invited me over for a Sunday afternoon baking adventure. It was great hanging out with Linda for multiple reasons. Despite having shared nationality and collegiate status, I really appreciated spending time with another former guest teacher who understands the experience I'm in. We also laughed about being goofy people in a country where the word "goofy" doesn't exist. Linda married a Turkish man, Mic (or Mik), who has lived in Germany his whole life and speaks fluent English. They have a 14 month year old son together who is going to be the master of three languages. So cool! Deniz (pronounced Dennis) was adorable and I regret not taking pictures of his entertaining shenanigans throughout the afternoon. 

So life is good. But I need to start becoming the teacher I want to be. Which means doing the things you know you should be doing. And figuring out the things you don't know how to do. And correcting things on time. And planning in advance. And holding students accountable for their behavior. 

Pictures