"Wenn Sie das Leben kennen, bitte geben Sie mir doch bitte seine Anschrift"

"If you know Life, please give me his address."

Well I've been here over a month now, and life can no longer just be about relaxing, fun and "settling in". What and where is life now? There's still fun, but suddenly I see work & deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. For me, my study and thus my dissertation proposal rank #1 at this point, and both of these things make me somewhat apprehensive...lots of work! There's also 2 conference papers to think about in 2010.

And to add onto that, there is now English teaching. I had my first class last week, and what an interesting class. I started off by telling them: "I am Canadian, I live in the USA and my forefathers are from the UK. I think I got a lot of places covered." The students average age is about 23, and I have 16 girls and 4 boys (heh). They can all speak some English, some better than others.  We did the whole quiz a partner and introduce them to the class game, followed up by some syllabus talk. Then, we went into chapter one. I got them all signed up for their presentations as well.

It's so weird to teach English. I kept almost speaking German...that's my teaching language! I feel like I'm doing something wrong speaking English, but not here. Also, I find it interesting to hear the errors the other way around. Instead of anglicized word order, I'm getting weird direct translations from German into English. I get what they mean, but I don't want to be constantly giving corrective feedback during moments when they volunteer an answer, or are doing partner work. I only discussed one grammar point while we were in class last week, because during the introductions many were still doing it the German way. For those who teach/speak German - some were saying: she lives here since 3 years. You know, very typical...so I asked the class how we say that in English, and one girl knew it was "she has lived here for 3 years". Excellent, score one for me if you are a fan of teaching grammar inductively ;) Some things don't work well inductively but that moment sure did.

This Thursday is the first partner presentation on family & friendship. I'm sure it'll be just lovely...I hope I will find enough materials to fill 2.5 hours every week. That's the longest I've ever taught at one time! Jeez..there will definitely be 10 minute breaks.

But today is Monday, and I am le tired. I had phonology class today and apart from almost entering into a discussion regarding how useful Pig Latin is for understanding English syllable boundaries, I was asked to report on where we split long words across paper lines when the entire word cannot be written on one line. Then, there were the 10 minutes dedicated to the linking R, etc. Geez. Both the American kid and I are not from places where this can be heard, so it's not like we were able to recreate it.

Anyway...enough about classes. This weekend was the international student trip to Weimar/Buchenwald. Cheap, fun, new people and places. It was great to get away from Marburg with some fun people and see a city I hadn't been to. Overall lots of fun and of course Buchenwald, sobering. There is nothing quite like visiting a former concentration camp. It is a horrifying place that moves you to the core, so unfathomable is it to imagine human beings treating one another in such a way. To finish this entry, I'll leave you with a haunting quote by Heinrich Heine from his 1821 play Almansor. I find it captures so well the dangers of hatred:

"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."
"Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings."

The great irony is that Heine's own works (probably even this play) were burned during Nazi book burning ceremonies in Berlin and elsewhere. An eerie foreshadow indeed...

School, research, Erasmus.

And definitely not in that order. Still, this will be my life here...working on my study, teaching, going to my own classes and last but not least, doing the Erasmus thing (Erasmus = European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students). I know, I'm not an Erasmus student. You have to be European to be on an Erasmus exchange. But it doesn't matter - all international students in some way feel like Erasmus kids...we all know each other anyway. Eat, sleep, party......(work). Repeat.

Uni classes started on Monday, although my teaching starts this week. I'm still drafting my course syllabus - a work in progress. I wonder what my class will be like...I got the list on Friday, 18 students. The class is full. Mostly German names, lots of girls. Interesting dynamic? I am hoping my first lesson will go down as follows: introduction of... myself, get-to-know-you games, organizational stuff, followed by a short first reading. Pretty much what I do with my German students back home...

Working with the English textbooks is interesting. I'm currently also tutoring a woman in advanced English...she's quite good. It's been hard gauging her level as I have no prior knowledge of level-gauging for English. Ha! We seem to share the same political mindset, and we've already had a few discussions...she's from Romania, and is married for the second time to a German man. She's quite strong-willed, and a little over-excited about practicing English. Well. We'll see how it goes.

My own classes at the university went well last week. I only am taking two courses, and really I only need to take one. Luckily, I don't have to do a thing for the second one (the one I'm taking out of interest), not even a presentation. Just show up if I want, and read if I want. Excellent. The phonology class sounds good too - I'll only have to do a presentation for it. AND it's Richard Wiese, Mr. Well-Known. And some kid in my class has heard of Herr Brown. WHAT?! Josh is famous, and for some reason I'm not at all surprised...

But alas, Uni week #1 ended, and on Saturday a group of 10 of us went to Frankfurt. We toured the city and then headed to the Frankfurter Buchmesse (book fair). Holy crap, that place was enormous. I've never seen so many books and stands...with only 2 hours before it closed to look around, we didn't get to see even half of the place. Still - quite the experience!

After the day in Frankfurt, I got home just in time to tune into the York University graduation ceremonies - all live via webcast! My sister graduated with an (Hons.) Bachelor of Fine Arts and it was hilarious to see her on my computer screen...at first, I just saw her in the crowd as the camera panned across the students. That made me laugh, so I texted her...she got my text fairly soon after apparently and showed her fellow graduates around her and told them I was watching 6 hours in the future from Germany. Crazy! I saw her get her diploma as well, so it worked out really well. Funny side note: Woody Harrelson got an honorary doctorate during their ceremony. Woody Harrelson?? His speech was way too long, but I supposed he finished off well...

The night ended with an Erasmus party at Unix (bar in town) and included a round of free tequila, some delicious Desperados and lots of dancing. Today, I relax.

Happy Anniversary Ali & Brian!

One year ago today, my sister got married. It was an unusually warm October day, and everything turned out beautifully. It was the best wedding I've ever been to, and I'm not just saying that because she's my sister!

All the best to A&B on their first wedding anniversary.

There were many great pictures taken that day, but here are a few of my  personal favourites:

New beginnings / old friends

One thing I've always liked about coming back to Germany is the fact that I'm always in a situation where it's easy to meet new friends...but at the same time, there are always many old friends that I can visit. This week was a Mischung of new and old, present and past.

Let's begin with the new: die OE-Woche, or orientation week, started on October 5th. Marburg has a special week organized just for international students. We arrived, paid the 35 Euro to take part, and were promptly split into groups. I was in Gruppe 3, which was made up of a fun bunch of girls and one guy. We represented Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Spain, France, Krygystan, Canada (duh) and our two Tutorinnen (mentors) were of course from Germany. Mostly everyone spoke German the whole time, which is always awesome. The first few days were mostly spent getting the formalities and paperwork out of the way, and also just getting to know one another (and people in other groups). The first night the ENTIRE international student population that arrived that week went for drinks at a local bar, which was lots of fun. The next evening was a welcome evening at the student residences. They have a bar there called SchwarzWeiß Café and it's pretty much exactly like the Thekenraum in Ulmenweg, the bar in the student residences where I lived in Mannheim. In any case, we all hung out that night too.

Wednesday, we finished all the paperwork, and did an organized city scavenger hunt of sorts. It was hilarious. We split our group up to tackle questions around the city - and apparently that worked well, because we won by 40 points! Woot.

By the end of Wednesday we were all exchanging numbers, so we can hang out after the orientation week as well. Thursday was the best though, with an International Food night planned. We picked our meals and all went shopping together (paid for by the orientation week)...on deck for our group was a baked fish meal from Krygystan, Quiche Lorraine from France and a chocolate cake from Greece. After shopping, we went up to the student residences, took over the kitchen in Haus 1, 4. Stock and cooked (and drank) for 3 hours! It was a lot of fun, and when we finally got everything to the SchwarzWeiß Café it was insane - so much food from all 10 groups...the most delicious stuff I have probably ever had! The party was awesome after too, lots of dancing and fun times. Late night for sure.

So goes the "new" portion of this blog. Now for the "old"!

Friday evening, I took the IC from Marburg down to Frankfurt...my friend Anke was having a birthday party! I know Anke because she was an exchange student at Penn State in our department in my first year there. She found out I was coming to Marburg, and invited me to stay at her place and go out with her friends. I got to Frankfurt and she had made us all dinner and of course there was birthday cake...mmm. And Bailey's too :P

We went out later all together, and danced for hours! The girls were all into dancing to salsa and other latin music...I on the other hand, am not so talented in that area...ha! However, I danced a bit and actually improved my Bachata moves slightly... :)

The next morning, after a good old-fashioned German breakfast, I made me way down to Baden-Württemberg (YAY) to one of my former stomping grounds...MANNHEIM! I stayed with my old roommate Berni for the night, he has a big apartment. We went into town for some dinner (at Zentrale!) and my friend Anna also came along! She was an exchange student during my Masters at Waterloo...haven't seen her in awhile, so it was nice. Also, I ate Curry-Wurst and Kirschweizen for the first time in a long time...life is tough, you know.

And today, I met up with Kyle and Danielle!! Also friends from Waterloo...Kyle is doing an exchange semester in Mannheim himself, and Danielle (his fiance) just happens to be visiting. Anna and Berni came along too, and we all had some coffee (well, Danielle and I had heiße Schokolade) and cake (German cheesecake to be exact...)

Tomorrow is Uni. I have one seminar, so we'll see how that goes. I am hoping to join the orchestra here, so I'm going to go to their first rehearsal to see if I can borrow/rent a violin for the year and join. Who knows! Teaching starts next week, but I have to get a syllabus written this week. I'm meeting with another teacher (exchange student like me) to see if we can't come up with something half decent ;)

Overall, this week gave me a glimpse of the fun times to come here in Marburg. For me it was kinda cool to see some familiar faces and places as well. At some point, I'll make it down to Karlsruhe again too :)

Bis bald!