I had an entry like this in my India blog.
Printed Materials I've Purchased:
Magazines:
French Vogue (at the Brussels airport)
German Cosmopolitan
Jolie
Books:
(all purchased second-hand at a lil outdoor book market for 1-3€!)
An die christlichen Adel deutscher Nation (On the Christian Nobility of the German Nation) by Martin Luther --this one's a tiny hardcover printed in Fraktur, old German script!
Herr und Hund (A Man and His Dog) by Thomas Mann --this one's small and hardcover!
Kaltblütig (Cold-blooded) by G. P. Stierand (pulp fiction; I bought it mostly for the cover, lol)
Katz und Maus (Cat and Mouse) by Günter Grass
Narziß und Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Wie ich eines schönen Morgens im April das 100% Mädchen sah (On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning) by Haruki Murakami --the only one I bought that was not originally written in German
=D
These'll last me a while!
I also want to purchase this recently published book called Chinesen in Berlin, about the history of Chinese people in Berlin, but it's 15€...that's hard to justify when I got 6 books, 4 of which are classics, for less than that!
16.6.10
Things I´ve Done At School Recently
Baked cornbread with first and second graders. They split into two teams, one with 3 boys and one with 4 girls. The boys were actually much better at it, more efficient and cooperative, while the girls would argue over who got to do what and got mixed up, putting in too much baking powder. It came out beautifully, and some of the kids were really sweet with how eager they were to help out and compensate for the other children who left early without doing much.
I was surprised/enttäuscht that about a third of the class decided they didn´t want to try the cornbread at all =(. Also we had pieces of toast and crackers w/ peanut butter on them, and there was so much left over. I know it´s a time of picky eaters, but there were plenty of kids exclaiming over how yummy everything was, and the cornbread smelled really good... Everyone was baffled that the "bread" looked so much like cake. S was kind of annoyed about that I think, as it was crumblier than bread usually is.
Last night I used one of the Ghirardelli brownie mixes I brought from home to bring to a tea party today in a 9th grade English class. Our school is generally an elementary school, but the hearing impaired students can stay all the way till graduation, so this was a hearing impaired class. The teacher wanted me to pretend not to speak any German (I often have to pretend this, it´s kind of annoying) and answer questions the students asked. At first the questions were slow to come, so I told them the story of how brownies were invented. Eventually this one student got really into asking me questions and it was pretty fun. (The only ones I didn´t like: do you do martial arts? Do you like Jackie Chan?). I wish I could come work with them again, esp. as apparently one of the more engaged students was absent today, but next week they are going on a class retreat.
In the "Bee" class (classes are named after animals; there are the Bienen/Bees, Schmetterlinge/Butterflies, Geparden/Cheetahs, Pumas, Fledermäuser/bats, Hasen/hares, etc--S is the assistant teacher for the Bees) today while some students worked on reading and others worked on math, I went through the books about Chicago my mom bought with 3 little girls. I had to explain everything in German since they were first and second graders, and sometimes even when I knew the right word they didn´t know the concept yet. But it was fun. One of the youngest was best at helping me finish my sentences or come up with the right name for things. I went through the "W is for Windy City" picturebook, and whenever we came across something I had a photo for in the Chicago book I would show it to them. They seemed to like seeing the city, and relating the places and events I described to their own experiences. =)
I was surprised/enttäuscht that about a third of the class decided they didn´t want to try the cornbread at all =(. Also we had pieces of toast and crackers w/ peanut butter on them, and there was so much left over. I know it´s a time of picky eaters, but there were plenty of kids exclaiming over how yummy everything was, and the cornbread smelled really good... Everyone was baffled that the "bread" looked so much like cake. S was kind of annoyed about that I think, as it was crumblier than bread usually is.
Last night I used one of the Ghirardelli brownie mixes I brought from home to bring to a tea party today in a 9th grade English class. Our school is generally an elementary school, but the hearing impaired students can stay all the way till graduation, so this was a hearing impaired class. The teacher wanted me to pretend not to speak any German (I often have to pretend this, it´s kind of annoying) and answer questions the students asked. At first the questions were slow to come, so I told them the story of how brownies were invented. Eventually this one student got really into asking me questions and it was pretty fun. (The only ones I didn´t like: do you do martial arts? Do you like Jackie Chan?). I wish I could come work with them again, esp. as apparently one of the more engaged students was absent today, but next week they are going on a class retreat.
In the "Bee" class (classes are named after animals; there are the Bienen/Bees, Schmetterlinge/Butterflies, Geparden/Cheetahs, Pumas, Fledermäuser/bats, Hasen/hares, etc--S is the assistant teacher for the Bees) today while some students worked on reading and others worked on math, I went through the books about Chicago my mom bought with 3 little girls. I had to explain everything in German since they were first and second graders, and sometimes even when I knew the right word they didn´t know the concept yet. But it was fun. One of the youngest was best at helping me finish my sentences or come up with the right name for things. I went through the "W is for Windy City" picturebook, and whenever we came across something I had a photo for in the Chicago book I would show it to them. They seemed to like seeing the city, and relating the places and events I described to their own experiences. =)
13.6.10
And time flies on/und die Zeit fliegt weiter
I feel like I´m in some sort of time warp vortex. I can´t believe I have less than 2 weeks left here =(.
Last night S and I hosted a party for her birthday. We made American and German finger food =). It was a low-key but fun night. Some of S´s friends came and she had me invite the other Americans too. Some were still exhausted from the night before so one was four hours late and another missed it entirely due to an accidental nap, lol.
American:
pigs in a blanket
mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
stuffed dates
German:
Käseigel (cheese hedgehog)-- half a melon with toothpicks of gouda+melon or gouda+grape stuck into it, and a face of raisins and a red gummy bear to make it look like a hedgehog
Senfgurke (mustard pickle)--some kind of pickled veggie, soft, a bit sour and sort of translucent
Lachsschnecken (salmon snails)--smoked salmon with herbs and some sort of cream spread rolled up in a type of pancake to be snaillike
Russisch Brot (a snack from the DDR...can´t really describe the taste, just mildly sweet brown letter and number shaped crunchy things...)
Kräcker mit Frischkäse (crackers with fresh cheese)--some w an herb-cheese spread, some with a "peppasweet" cheese spread
Today was my first truly upsetting incident of the trip. A couple drunk men were harrassing us as we were getting a tour of memorial sites for the Holocaust, including a former Jewish cemetary. We had to call the police, who came too late. It was awful.
On the plus side, I got to see Rosenstraße, which is one of the places I was most looking forward to going to in Berlin. That is one of the few cases of open protest during the Holocaust. The Nazis had rounded up about 1800 Jewish men who were married to Gentiles and locked them in a building on Rosenstraße until they could be transported to a concentration camp. However, the women somehow found out where their husbands were being held, and they and other concerned people gathered outside on the street and refused to leave. There were so many of them, and being mostly "Aryan" women there was nothing the Nazis could do to them. The protesting went on for a week. Realizing that to follow through with their plans would be, as someone in our group said, "a PR disaster," the men were finally released, and most ultimately survived the Third Reich.
After that we went to a restaurant where most of the people I was with ordered "naan pizza". I had a Radler (beer+lemonade) and the panini S made me this morning, mmm! Then we walked until we found a café for some much needed "coffee to go" (comes in such tiny cups here!). Nick and Kael thought of going to a nearby fleamarket at the exact same time, so we headed over there. It was labyrinthine! Such an awesome assortment of stands. I don´t even feel like we spent that long there, and I found some great items, such as a 0,50€ (ie fifty cent) shirt that fits me beauuuutifully, a 6€ architectural silver ring, and big butterfly earrings made out of sponges. (sounds weird...looks surprisingly delicately pretty!).
Okay, just had a long break where I watched the Germany vs. Australia game (4-0, woot!), spoke to my dear parents on the phone, made and ate Buchstaben Suppe (alphabet soup) and started upoading some photos of the East Side Gallery on facebook. Time to get ready for school tomorrow/bed.
Gute Nacht! =)
Last night S and I hosted a party for her birthday. We made American and German finger food =). It was a low-key but fun night. Some of S´s friends came and she had me invite the other Americans too. Some were still exhausted from the night before so one was four hours late and another missed it entirely due to an accidental nap, lol.
American:
pigs in a blanket
mini peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
stuffed dates
German:
Käseigel (cheese hedgehog)-- half a melon with toothpicks of gouda+melon or gouda+grape stuck into it, and a face of raisins and a red gummy bear to make it look like a hedgehog
Senfgurke (mustard pickle)--some kind of pickled veggie, soft, a bit sour and sort of translucent
Lachsschnecken (salmon snails)--smoked salmon with herbs and some sort of cream spread rolled up in a type of pancake to be snaillike
Russisch Brot (a snack from the DDR...can´t really describe the taste, just mildly sweet brown letter and number shaped crunchy things...)
Kräcker mit Frischkäse (crackers with fresh cheese)--some w an herb-cheese spread, some with a "peppasweet" cheese spread
Today was my first truly upsetting incident of the trip. A couple drunk men were harrassing us as we were getting a tour of memorial sites for the Holocaust, including a former Jewish cemetary. We had to call the police, who came too late. It was awful.
On the plus side, I got to see Rosenstraße, which is one of the places I was most looking forward to going to in Berlin. That is one of the few cases of open protest during the Holocaust. The Nazis had rounded up about 1800 Jewish men who were married to Gentiles and locked them in a building on Rosenstraße until they could be transported to a concentration camp. However, the women somehow found out where their husbands were being held, and they and other concerned people gathered outside on the street and refused to leave. There were so many of them, and being mostly "Aryan" women there was nothing the Nazis could do to them. The protesting went on for a week. Realizing that to follow through with their plans would be, as someone in our group said, "a PR disaster," the men were finally released, and most ultimately survived the Third Reich.
After that we went to a restaurant where most of the people I was with ordered "naan pizza". I had a Radler (beer+lemonade) and the panini S made me this morning, mmm! Then we walked until we found a café for some much needed "coffee to go" (comes in such tiny cups here!). Nick and Kael thought of going to a nearby fleamarket at the exact same time, so we headed over there. It was labyrinthine! Such an awesome assortment of stands. I don´t even feel like we spent that long there, and I found some great items, such as a 0,50€ (ie fifty cent) shirt that fits me beauuuutifully, a 6€ architectural silver ring, and big butterfly earrings made out of sponges. (sounds weird...looks surprisingly delicately pretty!).
Okay, just had a long break where I watched the Germany vs. Australia game (4-0, woot!), spoke to my dear parents on the phone, made and ate Buchstaben Suppe (alphabet soup) and started upoading some photos of the East Side Gallery on facebook. Time to get ready for school tomorrow/bed.
Gute Nacht! =)
10.6.10
Aaaaaahhhhhh!
Somehow my month here is nearly 50% over already and I have not blogged once!
Time here is flying away! I have been having such an amazing time living with and learning from S (we get along so well, we often talk for over three hours at a time, it´s ridiculous), observing and interacting with the children, and gallivanting about the city.
As I often did in my India blog when I was overwhelemed, I will break things down into lil categories:
Awesome places I have been:
~Gropiusbau art museum (we went to an exhibit today that was like BEING IN HEAVEN. It was almost sensory deprivation due to how thick the fog was, and there were bright colored lights, like the mist would change color as you moved about the room--visibiliy was so low I couldn´t even see my own feet, and people would come into view very slowly and myteriously; you wouldn´t see a wall till you were 6 inches away from it (one girl in our group cut her hand because of this, lol.) It was magnificent.
~A museum all about prosthetics and wheelchairs--so many incredible interactive exhibits. Now I know what it feels like to try to navigate Pariser Platz (the square right in front of the Brandenburg Gate) in a wheelchair, oh man
~The East Side Gallery, a long stretch of the Berlin Wall that has been preserved and is now covered in murals, many concerning peace and freedom....really powerful
~The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe --a pretty chilling experience if you do it correctly, but sadly it´s not made super clear from the outside what it is, so you have sunbathers, couples and children eating ice cream lounging on it in places. When you walk inside you get disoriented, the ground swells up and down, the gravestone-like blocks stretch taller and taller, you just see flashes of other people as they pass... There´s supposed to be information beneath it but I haven´t been down there yet
~Memorial for the Homosexuals Persecuted in Nazism --a big block of gray with a small window into it, where a black and white film of two people (according to wikipedia it switches every two years between 2 men and 2 women--this year it´s on men) tenderly making out can be viewed. It`s nice I guess, but I feel like something much more powerful could have been done. The accompanying plaque for it was really beautifully/well- written, though.
~One thing that´s popular here are bars with the most powdery, light, beautiful sand as their floors, located along the river. Strewn with beach chairs and giant square beanbags. Now that the weather is summer-hot, along the river and reclining is a lovely state to be in.
~Berghain--a superintense club. When I was in it, I kept thinking, AAAHHHTHISISSOBERLIN. And later (wandered there one night at the will of a guy in our group who´d been there before) when I looked it up online it turns out it´s supposed to be one of the best here. People even write advice on how to get in, lol, and we just traipsed in without trying or realizing how exclusive and well-known it is. Oops. I wasn´t that into the music and it´s tough to dance with a wristlet...but it was a neat atmosphere. We found all these sketchy (but clean and comfy) little nooks to rest in, and one in our trio actually fell asleep while I just sat there, resting my legs (we probably wandered for miles before finding the place, it was in a really random industrial area and everyone we asked for directions gave us different advice) and enjoying the thump of the beat in my body.
Actually, more on that night--slash another awesome place I´ve been, is on the big bridge that Lola runs through in the film Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run in English)! We were kind of running away from something and while it was happening I realized: I´ve seen this before! This happened in a movie! We are running where Lola ran! ^_^
Before finding Berghain we ended up near this river, and it totally looked like we´d been transported to New Orleans. Further down we found a club that had a beautiful swimming pool lit from the inside and like, built right on the river...Even though it was a warm night they weren´t letting people in yet, or we´d totally have jumped in.
I should probably talk about school! I love love love the children. They are SO CUTE and wonderful. Aaaaahhh. I´ve been writing down funny/strange quotes; shall put those in here soon enough. I´ve been surprised at how unruly the classes are, but I think that probably has more to do with the Montessori system than the teachers.
Random fact: Here instead of handles on the toilets you have buttons. Some toilets have just one button, but most have a small button and a bigger button....Guess why. X) O, Germans and their practicality/environmentallyfriendliness--no reason to use more or less water than you need!
Rarrgh. So tired. They really have us booked night till day pretty much, pretty much every day. I don´t see how they expect us to work on our research projects when we have field trips on every allotted "research day"... And most of us do sooo much commuting that it´s not just about being awake or alert, but true physical weariness and need of bedrest.
Speaking of which, that´s where I should be getting to! Have to wake up in 6 hours (circa 5.15am) to get ready for school-commute. Joyy. It´s been kind of empowering though, to know that I CAN do it if I REALLY need to...)
Ich vermisse euch alle! Hab euch lieeeeb!
Time here is flying away! I have been having such an amazing time living with and learning from S (we get along so well, we often talk for over three hours at a time, it´s ridiculous), observing and interacting with the children, and gallivanting about the city.
As I often did in my India blog when I was overwhelemed, I will break things down into lil categories:
Awesome places I have been:
~Gropiusbau art museum (we went to an exhibit today that was like BEING IN HEAVEN. It was almost sensory deprivation due to how thick the fog was, and there were bright colored lights, like the mist would change color as you moved about the room--visibiliy was so low I couldn´t even see my own feet, and people would come into view very slowly and myteriously; you wouldn´t see a wall till you were 6 inches away from it (one girl in our group cut her hand because of this, lol.) It was magnificent.
~A museum all about prosthetics and wheelchairs--so many incredible interactive exhibits. Now I know what it feels like to try to navigate Pariser Platz (the square right in front of the Brandenburg Gate) in a wheelchair, oh man
~The East Side Gallery, a long stretch of the Berlin Wall that has been preserved and is now covered in murals, many concerning peace and freedom....really powerful
~The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe --a pretty chilling experience if you do it correctly, but sadly it´s not made super clear from the outside what it is, so you have sunbathers, couples and children eating ice cream lounging on it in places. When you walk inside you get disoriented, the ground swells up and down, the gravestone-like blocks stretch taller and taller, you just see flashes of other people as they pass... There´s supposed to be information beneath it but I haven´t been down there yet
~Memorial for the Homosexuals Persecuted in Nazism --a big block of gray with a small window into it, where a black and white film of two people (according to wikipedia it switches every two years between 2 men and 2 women--this year it´s on men) tenderly making out can be viewed. It`s nice I guess, but I feel like something much more powerful could have been done. The accompanying plaque for it was really beautifully/well- written, though.
~One thing that´s popular here are bars with the most powdery, light, beautiful sand as their floors, located along the river. Strewn with beach chairs and giant square beanbags. Now that the weather is summer-hot, along the river and reclining is a lovely state to be in.
~Berghain--a superintense club. When I was in it, I kept thinking, AAAHHHTHISISSOBERLIN. And later (wandered there one night at the will of a guy in our group who´d been there before) when I looked it up online it turns out it´s supposed to be one of the best here. People even write advice on how to get in, lol, and we just traipsed in without trying or realizing how exclusive and well-known it is. Oops. I wasn´t that into the music and it´s tough to dance with a wristlet...but it was a neat atmosphere. We found all these sketchy (but clean and comfy) little nooks to rest in, and one in our trio actually fell asleep while I just sat there, resting my legs (we probably wandered for miles before finding the place, it was in a really random industrial area and everyone we asked for directions gave us different advice) and enjoying the thump of the beat in my body.
Actually, more on that night--slash another awesome place I´ve been, is on the big bridge that Lola runs through in the film Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run in English)! We were kind of running away from something and while it was happening I realized: I´ve seen this before! This happened in a movie! We are running where Lola ran! ^_^
Before finding Berghain we ended up near this river, and it totally looked like we´d been transported to New Orleans. Further down we found a club that had a beautiful swimming pool lit from the inside and like, built right on the river...Even though it was a warm night they weren´t letting people in yet, or we´d totally have jumped in.
I should probably talk about school! I love love love the children. They are SO CUTE and wonderful. Aaaaahhh. I´ve been writing down funny/strange quotes; shall put those in here soon enough. I´ve been surprised at how unruly the classes are, but I think that probably has more to do with the Montessori system than the teachers.
Random fact: Here instead of handles on the toilets you have buttons. Some toilets have just one button, but most have a small button and a bigger button....Guess why. X) O, Germans and their practicality/environmentallyfriendliness--no reason to use more or less water than you need!
Rarrgh. So tired. They really have us booked night till day pretty much, pretty much every day. I don´t see how they expect us to work on our research projects when we have field trips on every allotted "research day"... And most of us do sooo much commuting that it´s not just about being awake or alert, but true physical weariness and need of bedrest.
Speaking of which, that´s where I should be getting to! Have to wake up in 6 hours (circa 5.15am) to get ready for school-commute. Joyy. It´s been kind of empowering though, to know that I CAN do it if I REALLY need to...)
Ich vermisse euch alle! Hab euch lieeeeb!
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