Kitties and Their Christmas Ribbons

"Mom went shopping, I get the bag!

Nightly Nudi Walk

Napping with the Duki

Me and my Nudi

Lover Kitty

"Ah! Mom's butt, nice and soft!"

Mom's butt warmer

Suki Prints

"Mom wrapped me up for Christmas"

"Mom's favorite present"

"Get this stupid ribbon off me"!

Nudi Water

Why mom always wakes up with a stiff neck

"Mom's clothes are SO comfy!"

Daddy and his Bird

"I the Duki- Monster"

Crotchy

Yesterday was Christmas. Tony and I were invited over to a fellow teacher's house. It was really nice. We had duck (me for the first time, I think Tony had it in China), red cabbage (Tony actually ate and YES, we both stink now), and Knodel.

The fellow teacher's mom was there. That lady is something else. Tony and I have named her Crotchy. Its short for Crotchety Old Lady. She studied in some rinky dink town in Indiana like 40 years ago, but knows EXACTLY what life is like ALL OVER America still today.

She started by telling me how horrible American schools are. Sure most American schools are probably not as good as they could/ should be, but I just felt like she was unnecessarily ripping on my profession.

After I told her that I'm a German Teacher in America, she looked at me with this really confused face and asked me where I was going to teach German and told me they don't teach German in American high schools. It took all of me not to say: " Yes, my university just offered a degree in German Language Education for shits and giggles, there really is no such job in America".

Then she started complaining about how badly Black people are treated in the USA. Yes, I know America has had and still does have issues treating certain groups of people with respect and equality. I just felt like she was pointing fingers without looking at the issues her own country has and has had. It took all of me not to say: "Do I need to remind you that your country killed millions of Jews just over 60 years ago". (And just for the record, I know it was horrible of me to even think that... which is why I would NEVER dream of  saying it.) She also tried telling me that things haven't gotten much better in the USA for Black people. I really wonder if she realizes that Obama is Black.

Then she started complaining about how horrible her host family was because they wanted her to wear Bobby socks and she didn't feel comfortable doing that.... she wanted to wear her knee socks. It took all of me not to say: "Seriously lady, they're SOCKS".

Then she told Tony and I how ugly she thinks American English is and how stupid we sound compared to the British because we use a smaller vocabulary. I just can't imagine EVER saying that to somebody's face. That would be like me telling somebody from Austria that I think the language they speak makes them sound stupid because its not German- German. What does saying something like that accomplish?

She ended the conversation by saying that she had encouraged her kids to go study in America, but none of them ever did.... she thought probably because she had said so many negative things to them about Americans. It took all of me not to say: "If you have the balls to say such ignorant things to two people from America, I can only imagine what all you told your kids".

It doesn't bother me that this lady had her opinions about the USA. In fact, I don't even disagree with everything she's saying... America has had and still does have problems, but seriously lady, you don't think the USA has changed AT ALL in the last 40 some years? Right,  because Germany hasn't changed at all in the last 40 years either. There's still an East and West Germany and you still use the Deutsche Mark. America is a huge country with all different kinds of people. I'm pretty sure that rinky dink town you lived in in Indiana 40 years ago probably didn't represent the entire country very well. I'm not sure any one place in American can represent the entire country.

At the time of the conversation I just really wanted to throw my Knodel in Crotchy's face, but now her ignorance is just funny to me! I've had SO many of these conversations with Germans.

It's one of those cultural differences. A difference that I sometimes find  hard/annoying to deal with. I feel like most Americans probably wouldn't sit at Christmas dinner and rip on somebody's country and way of life.

Maybe she could have said what she felt in a way that wasn't so offensive.... of course that too may be a cultural difference. To a German what she said might not be offensive. Who knows!

I could have in turn listed off a whole number of things that I don't particularly like about living in Germany, but whats the point? There's a quote I've found to be OH SO true after having lived abroad.

It is: "When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make it's own people comfortable."

I wish I would have thought of this quote in the half hour she was telling me how much America sucks!

Snow plow? Shovel? What are those?

 Germans crack me up when it comes to winter weather.  Maybe I just find it funny because I grew up in one of the coldest parts of the the USA  and snow is just a HUGE part of life, but seriously, Germans provide silly entertainment in the winter.

Example One: Its 40 degrees out and Germans have their thick winter jackets, mittens, and hats on. Tony and I get looked at all funny because we've still got flip flops and shorts on.

Example Two: Tony and I were waiting for the bus the other day. It was WAY late (as usual) so we stood and watched a man across the street clean snow off his car. This was the highlight of our weekend. If he hadn't been only 10 ft. away from us, Tony and I would have been laughing hysterically. It took him (NO LIE) 40 minutes to clean four inches of snow off his car. 1. He had a scraper so small I'm almost positive it was made to use on a Matchbox Car. 2. Instead of turning on the car and cranking the defrost or even just turning it on, he kept spraying this liquid crap on the windows and then stared at it while it SLOWLY only kind off melted the snow/ice on his windows. 3. Instead of pushing the snow from on top of the car off the side of the car onto the ground, he kept pushing it back onto the windows which he has just spent 10 minutes spraying with his dinky little spray bottle.... which obviously meant he once again had to spray and scrape the windows. 4. By the time he would scrape one side of the car's windows clean, the other side's windows were frozen again... so he'd get out the spray bottle again. 5. Heaven forbid there be one little flake of snow on his car. He went around his car to get every little tiny piece of snow off of the car with his little Matchbox Car scraper. 6. Then FINALLY 40ish minutes later the guy gets in his car and drives off without warming the car up at all. If he really cared so much about his car to get EVERY LITTLE piece of snow off of it, you'd think he'd at least warm the thing up for a little. It was like watching something from a movie... like from the Three Stooges or something.... Then after spending all the time watching the guy clean his car off, Tony and I realized that the buses don't run on holidays, so we'd been standing outside for nothing! Sure was entertaining though. I wish we'd have been able to film it.

Example Three: It takes them like 4 days to plow 4 inches of snow off the streets. That's an inch a day, I guess. It probably doesn't help that most of their snow plows are glorified four wheelers with plows on the front. I've only ever seen two "real" snow plows.

Example Four: The other day, Tony calls me into the kitchen to look out the window at the woman shoveling across the street. Instead of shoveling the snow horizontally across her driveway, she was pushing the snow all the way from her house down to the street (not a short driveway). When she got to the end of the driveway, she would struggle to pick the snow up and throw it. The funny part: 1. She was throwing all the snow in the street right where the plow was going to plow it right back into her driveway and 2. half the snow she was throwing was being blown right back onto her driveway.

Example Five: People just plain don't shovel the side walks here. I'm getting calves like the Hulk from walking in all the snow. Its murder on your boots!

Catching Up

So, its been a really LONG time since I've written anything on here. Not really sure if many people are reading this anyway, but for those of you who do, sorry its been so long.

Things have been going really well for Tony and I. I (Emily) LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE my school! The teachers are great and have gone WAY out of their way to make me feel welcome. I love my students. I especially love teaching 5th and 6th grade. Things have worked out perfectly! Jesus knew just what he was doing when he placed me at the Schubart Gymnasium in Aalen. I've already requested to stay another year and Tony needs to finish he Master's, so it works out perfectly. I won't know for sure if I can stay another year until early 2011, but it sounds promising. Keep your fingers crossed for me! 

One of my favorite lessons I've taught was at Halloween. I carved Pumpkins with my seventh graders!



For more pumpkin carving pics. click here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2175347&id=185005169&l=6bf053f4b8

Apparently according to the bus company in my town, my name is Emily Znkger.

Kitty Litter

Today was a GREAT success!

We found cat litter that works!!!!!!!!

I'm sure most of you are rolling your eyes, but  NO NO NO...this makes me a VERY happy woman! I think the kitties were getting mad at us because we kept bringing home crappy kitty litter.

You should have seen BooBoo when we brought home the good stuff. She was just beaming. It's like she was saying: "Gee, thanks mom" like Cindy from the Brady Bunch.

Now, if only we could get them to scoop their own poop.

British? I think not!

I've (Emily) been teaching here in Aalen for about a month now. I really like it so far. 99% of the time anyway.

I'm teaching two 5th grade English classes, two 8th grade English classes, two 8th grade Geography classes, two 7th grade Geography classes, a 9th grade English class and an 11th grade English. At the moment I'm teaching a 13th grade (yes Germans go to school for 13 years, though this is changing) English class because the teacher is on an exchange to Pennsylvania with some students from my school.

I love my 5th graders. Both classes are so CUTE! On Thursday and Friday mornings I get to ride the bus with some of my girls to school in the morning. They are just the sweetest things.

One seventh grade class makes me crazy. I call them "little monsters" and they know it too. Last class period one kid flicked a little piece of plastic into another kid's eye. Yes, they were boys. I swear boys at the middle school level are the same in EVERY country!

The other other 7th grade class is my favorite class. It is full of the sweetest girls who actually want to learn and have a sense of humor. This is the class I carved pumpkins with. Click the link to see the pictures.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2175347&id=185005169&l=6bf053f4b8

My 8th grade classes are good too, although the hormones tend to take over sometimes.

9th grade is great. Puberty is over for the most part and the students are old enough that you can joke around with them, but still young enough that they still see you as an authority figure and listen to what you say.

The 11th grade class I have is interesting. It's one of those classes that makes time drag on and on because nobody participates. Their regular teacher tells me they're always like this, even when I'm not there. I guess they have the reputation of being the quietest class in the school. They literally just stare at you when you ask questions. I've asked then if they can understand me and they say yes and I know they really can understand me because when one of them FINALLY gets the guts to talk, it's always really good and interesting. I don't know if this class is just made up of a bunch of quiet people or if they're afraid to make mistakes in front of each other, but I swear I hear crickets when I work with this class. It's such a contrast to the other classes I teach and to the classes I've taught at home where you can't get the kids to shut up!

The 13th grade English class is pretty easy. I feel bad for them though. They have to read these REALLY boring stories about the Brits colonizing places like India and Africa. It's a real snooze-fest for the most part, but the kids have to learn it because I guess on  their "Abitur" (sort of like a graduation test) they ask specific questions about each story. UGG! The students are all really nice though!

I only have one complain about my school so far....

They seem to hold British English to a higher standard and sometimes make me feel as though my American English is somehow ugly and inferior to British English. One teacher even tries to correct my pronunciation and spelling. Like, I'll say something and then she says it three more times to the students as if I'm saying it wrong because I'm not saying it the way the British would. It can get annoying.  She seems to get annoyed with me because I spell things like favorite without the "u" and organized with a "z" instead of an "s". I guess I didn't realize how many differences there are between American and British English before starting at this school.

The other day in 7th grade Geo. I was teaching the students the parts of a tree and I came to the word "branches" I said it how an American would say it and then she said "No it's branches" with the British pronunciation. I felt like she was telling me that I don't know how to speak my own language and the worst thing is that she did it in front of the students. Yea, thanks for making me look like an idiot. I feel like she could say: "That's the way an American says it and this is the way the British would say it", but to just flat out tell the kids that the way I was saying the word was wrong is kinda of ridiculous, I think.  I think this teacher learned British English a long ago and hasn't come to the realization yet that American English is also considered proper English.

If the school finds British English better somehow, ok, I can respect that. I'd be more than willing to teach kids things the British way if that's what they need to learn, but I feel like expecting me to do it with no time to prepare is unrealistic. It's almost like expecting me to speak a foreign language.


.

My First Week Here

So I (Tony) have been in Germany for a week and it has been great.  I really enjoy being here and experiencing all the culture.  People are telling me they want to hear what I think of Germany, so here I go.  For the most part there are small differences like transportation, the way the houses are built, and the food.  The houses are so simple but still cool.  I like riding the bus, but the Aalen buses are not really good at being on time.  The first night I was here we went to the store to get some cat litter.  We put it in my luggage to carry it back, but cobblestone roads and luggage wheels don’t go together.  By the time we got back the wheels were all broken.  Opps.  I went to school with Emily on Friday and it was cool.  The kids were cutie and they knew a lot of English and they were smart too.  On Saturday we got up really early and went to Oktoberfest with Emily’s friend Susan.  The train ride was an experience because there were no seats because everybody was going to Munich.  There were some drunken guys singing and being crazy.  We were standing for 2 hours but we finally got there and in to the festival grounds.  I thought it was just going to be people drinking, but it was a carnival with people getting smashed.  It was like a fair, but with more drinking and no 4-H projects.  Susan almost got puked on and we saw a lot of wasted people.  It was a pretty fun experience though.   As you all can imagine Emily was greatly enthused.  We were talking to a girl on the way back and she said I was pretty adventurous going to Oktoberfest after being in the county for 3 days. 

All the cars here are Benz’s, BMW, VW, or Audi, well I am exaggerating a little, but not really.  Everybody has a nice car and even the buses and work trunks are Mercedes Benz.  Shopping in a grocery store is different here, one cause a lot of things are cheaper and they push you through the checkout line like a herd of cows.  They scan your stuff ask for money and move on.  I have been pretty independent in trying to order food and riding and walking into town.   

The best thing about Germany so far is the Doner, and the Windows/Doors.  Doner is a Turkish food that has finely sliced beef in a pita with lettuce, onions, and a great sauce.  It is so good and at 1.50 euro you can’t go wrong.   

The windows and door are so cool and usable.  They can be closed shut, open all the way and then just opened at the top to get some air in.   click on the link and you will see how cool they are   http://image.made-in-china.com/4f0j00tezQGIAaBUpr/German-Style-Wood-Window.jpg  They are so smart to do this and it works so well.  Well that is what I have to say for not, but I am sure I will have more to say.  

 Tschuess(Bye)

For more pictures look at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2174811&id=185000672&l=9941f0113b