As of 9 pm August 29th... [school talk]

August 29, 2007

CAUTION: ANOTHER LONG POST AHEAD

"I am tired
I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me…
Different colors made of tears."
-Velvet Underground

My god am I exhausted. My head hurts. I’m so pitifully frustrated. I have a chronic cough. I blame my German school and its mandatory socializing…..

HERE BEGINS VERY DETAILED SCHOOL-TALK:

I started school on Monday (it’s now Thursday), and let me tell you: it’s DAMN hard to be a foreign exchange student. To start off, the first day Pauline and I rode our bikes to school, about six miles away, uphill both ways, in the snow! (Uh, nix the snow part. ((Luke, I wrote that and then realized those exact words came from you. ARGH MY SUBCONSCIOUS))). I guess I’m pretty out of shape, because I was EXHAUSTED half way there, but Pauline seemed fine riding so far and so quickly and so… uphill. My God. (By the way, on the way to school, she asked me what a baby horse was called in English; I answered “Uh, baby horse?” And then ten minutes later, I correct myself, “PONY!” Chris, maybe you should make me those flashcards of animal names.)

Pauline brought me to principal Herr Roloff, who spoke less English than she did. Somehow we managed a schedule for myself in five minutes, but that wasn’t the end of it. Apparently, we only chose my classes and teachers, but I had no actual specified hours or room numbers yet. These were posted on a bulletain board in the front hall, where crowds of students were gathered for SO LONG. Once we got to the front, Pauline had no idea how to read the 12th grade schedules – and guess what, neither did I. BUT she did ask a girl, Elisabeth, to help me out – which she did. A lot. And she STILL does. We’ve become fairly good friends and she’s incredibly helpful and friendly – she’s also in several of my classes and her English is okay. After about a half hour of standing in front of this small piece of paper, my schedule is written out by Elisabeth, albeit with several empty spaces and some classes without room numbers (such a head ache). I never thought I’d say it, but Centennial is more organized than this school. This GERMAN school, no less! So much for the stereotype of German efficiency…

Every one of my Day 1 classes (we have a different schedule every day a.k.a. head ache #2) had curmudgeons for teachers. All were disinterested in me, and kept speaking flowing German to me, despite my words, “Ich bin eine Austauschschulerin aus Amerika” (I’m a foreign exchange student from America) “Und ich kann nicht so gut Deutsch spechen oder verstehen” (Und I can’t speak or understand such good German). I complain, but I’m very lucky because there’ve been so many helpful students there: Jessica (SO nice, came over to sit by me in Mathe Kurs so I wouldn’t be alone, she said, and she also translated the old man teacher’s words to me) and Elisabeth and Henni (she invited me to her birthday party on Friday! I hope it’s not dancing… :/ ) and Merle (also extremely friendly and helpful) and Annika (very sweet). Basically all of those people have translated teachers’ words QUITE often for me.

Also, you may all be entertained to know that I have German class with 10 year olds. I do not lie. My head is a foot above theirs and my knees hit the underside of the table. BUT, this is also my favorite class. Everyone’s so nice there ☺. But it’s really awkward, because there are 16 year old students who sit in the back of the room to help out with the cute little kids… and with me. Please entertain this visual in your head for a bit. I try to put aside my pride, but, you know, it’s difficult to do so when I have to look off of a 10 year old’s paper to see what we’re supposed to be doing. Luckily, the 16 year old helpers seem down to earth and don’t make fun of me ;) One of them, Ruben, is very friendly and he told me he lives two houses down from mine…

Overall my classes are very awkward in the beginning because my teachers don’t know I speak only a little German – so I give my friends a confused and pitiful look when teachers speak to me and they try to translate. The students pretty much know that I’m an exchange student from America now. It’s a pretty small school. Most of them are passively interested in me, a few are friendly enough to say hi, and some don’t care one way or the other. A lot of them actually speak English really well, but I think they’re shy about it.

The most awkard was actually my French class, LEVEL SIX FRENCH;. and I have had only one and a half years of French, mind you. The (unsympathetic/unfriendly/unwelcoming) French teacher talked to me in fluent French at first and when I tried to speak it back, it came out as an incredible French/German/English hybrid. Learning a language (French) on the side of another, more intensive language-learning (German) is mindblowingly DIFFICULT. My mind treats all these foreign languages the same now; for instance, I said something like “Je vais nach Ascheberg pour ein Jahr.” There is so much wrong with that sentence, I’m embarassed thinking about it…. Anyway, the second day I came into class, that French teacher asked me why I was still there. She then told me to go enjoy the day… outside. So basically I got kicked out of that class because I was wasting my own time, and so I went outside and napped. It’s way too daunting of a task to try to fill in that hour with something else, so I may just leave that hour free…

Oh, and my first English teacher was a pretentious jerk. I think he felt that he needed to prove himself to me or something, but he just came across as arrogant.
Here is an excerpt from our dialogue:
Sir G-something: (in his perfectly british accent) You know, you look far too young to be among this group of students.
Me: No, I’m 17... In one month, I will -
Sir G-something: (interupts me, looks at the class and not at me, and loudly mocks me with pretentious laughter, saying) HAHA so you’re SIXTEEN, you’ll be 17 in one month.
Me: NO, YOU JERK LET ME TALK. I will be 18 in a month.
Sir G-something: (no reponse; he shuffles his papers like he’s doing something better and isn’t really concerned with the conversation)

I may have deviated from the truth in that second to last line… But honest, the rest is verbatum.

Yeah, and I also really don’t know any of my teachers names. It gets lost among their German-speak. I know that guy is Herr (Mr.) Gesteht or something, I don’t know. I don’t care too much, either.

Also, Art class was really bad because there are only 5 students, and the teacher lectured the entire time. Svea (friend) whispered to me, “You can leave” because she saw that I was obviously bored and lost. I think we’re going to the Museum next time – I don’t’ really know though, because I don’t speak German ;)


HERE BEGINS OTHER VARIOUS OBSERVATIONS:

1. I noticed such a shift in my mood after school started. Saturday and Sunday, I felt so incredibly peaceful and my mind was clear and I was loving everything and everyone: my town, my family, etc. But once school started, I was instantly EXTREMELY and constantly fall-asleep-any-second type of tired and I felt on the verge of despair and extreme frustration. I think that is all due to the fact that up until school started, I was amongst people who understood me and my situation. They already knew I didn’t speak German so I didn’t have to explain anything to them. Once school started, I was among people who didn’t know me in the least, who I had to try to explain my situation to, who didn’t care about me, etc. So this unfamiliar social situation and the language and the confusing schedule and the unsympathetic teachers and the mostly indifferent students and my JETLAG (i think) have really taken a toll on me, my mind, and my body…

2. I also notice that in this stressful state, I haven’t been able to apprecaite the beauty of where I am and what I’m doing. I see such BEAUTIFUL shops and homes and landscape everywhere. I realize I’m so lucky to be doing what I’m doing. But I already take it for granted, it seems like. As dissapointing as it sounds, I feel like I’m just too tired to be impressed or to appreciate these things right now.

3. Yeah, yeah I know this is all just a passing phase, yadda yadda yadda. And it’s an odd sensation to realize that:
Right now, I see these students in front of me but I’m not close with them at all. But soon I KNOW I will be.
Right now, I cannot communicate in German. But soon I KNOW I will be able to.
Right now, I’m mildly miserable. But soon I KNOW I’ll never want to leave.
It’s an odd sensation, because there’s no way I can skip to that next step, even though I KNOW it will come. I just have to wait and endure this chaos first before it all makes sense.

But man. It’s all so mentally straining.

4. I also wanted to explain how different transportation is here. I realize that teens and just the general populous of Americans REALLY take their cars for granted (at least compared to what I'm observing here...). Truly, there are nearly one hundred bikes parked at my school daily. EVEN WHEN IT RAINS. I know only one guy who drives to school. When I told my friend I was taking the train home, she said, "What, are you too lazy to ride your bike?" I think THAT remark sums up the situation well. But really, Germans walk or ride their bike SO much more here - it's just natural to them. They'd say, why take a car when you could just as easily walk and enjoy outside for a little while? I get to school either by bike (very hard), by bus (must walk a bit), or by train (must walk a little further). ALL the options require physical excerise (a good thing). I think I'll consider walking/biking much more when I get back to the USA.

PEACE,
jennyg