On our wayto Washington D.C. my friends and I (no one was American) ("my friends and me" would be wrong in this case, because you ask for the subject. I´m pretty sure the way I do it is right.) wondered in what state Washigton D.C. is in. So at a stop at a gas station we asked the woman, who worked there. her answer: "Oh boy, you gotta stay in school!".
Nice, so if you don´t know that, you better stay in school. So we told her taht we weren´t from the U.S. and what did she say?!
"Doesn´t matter where you´re from!"
Wow, so it doesn´t matter where you´re from, every one around the world has to know that Washington D.C. is not in any state, it´s in the District of Colombia?!
It craped us up. It was about the funniest thing I´ve heard in a long time.
Sometime you should really start thinging before you speak it out loud. But any help for this lady was too late anyway. She did not even get it after everyone had to start laughing.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Other people, other English
On my wonderful trip I had the opportunity to meet so many people from so many different countries. That was probably one of my favorite parts, because I just love to hear about different cultures and how they experience life here.
Of course were Germans the majority (we apparently don´t like our country so that we take the first opportunity (an exchange year) to leave it). I was always kind of worried that I would be behind with my English improvement and skills for living in an English speaking country for seven months, since I don´t interact too much with other German exchange stundents. I just noticed that I still do embarrassing dump mistakes (the"v" sound is still hard for me).
BUT: Hey, there are still tons of exchange students out there, with a way stronger accent and worse mistakes :) !
One girl for example always said "same by me" instead of "same with me". Little things, but things you should know. My English teacher in Germany would have killed her for doing the some mistake over and over again, but here in the US people are just too polite. No one ever told her that this was wrong.
People stop being polite, be honest and straight forward!!! Please.
Of course, I hate it if people correct me, but I know that it is to my best benefit and after 2 weeks being mad and them I eventually talk to them again ;)
I also finally came to the point were I could understand what a German accent sounds like. I speak with one of course, but every time someone said "I like your accent." I had no clue how I sounded to them. After listening to Germans speaking English for a week, I can tell what a German accent is: very clumpy, not soft at all, more like stones falling down a table. I think, it´s because we´re more used to use the tongue to speak and not lips too much, that gives everything a sharp sound.
It´s funny, but I know now, when I sound very German :).
Of course were Germans the majority (we apparently don´t like our country so that we take the first opportunity (an exchange year) to leave it). I was always kind of worried that I would be behind with my English improvement and skills for living in an English speaking country for seven months, since I don´t interact too much with other German exchange stundents. I just noticed that I still do embarrassing dump mistakes (the"v" sound is still hard for me).
BUT: Hey, there are still tons of exchange students out there, with a way stronger accent and worse mistakes :) !
One girl for example always said "same by me" instead of "same with me". Little things, but things you should know. My English teacher in Germany would have killed her for doing the some mistake over and over again, but here in the US people are just too polite. No one ever told her that this was wrong.
People stop being polite, be honest and straight forward!!! Please.
Of course, I hate it if people correct me, but I know that it is to my best benefit and after 2 weeks being mad and them I eventually talk to them again ;)
I also finally came to the point were I could understand what a German accent sounds like. I speak with one of course, but every time someone said "I like your accent." I had no clue how I sounded to them. After listening to Germans speaking English for a week, I can tell what a German accent is: very clumpy, not soft at all, more like stones falling down a table. I think, it´s because we´re more used to use the tongue to speak and not lips too much, that gives everything a sharp sound.
It´s funny, but I know now, when I sound very German :).
An amazing spring break
We had spring break last week and I went with a whole bunch of exchange students from everywhere to Boston, New York and Washington D.C.! It was awesome.
Because I can kind of figure that no one would be interested in all the wonderful little details of my trip, I just write about a couple of things I noticed and try not to write a journal.
I felt it was just super nice to see finally more of the US (people always kept asking we what I`ve seen so far and my answer was more or less just Iowa) and nerdy as I am I was just really interested in history and culture. Too bad, that I just had a week (this is by the way a suggestion to start a revolution for longer breaks in the American school system).
The east cost is really not Iowa. Believe it or not, but there are actually tries (something I miss in the Hawkeye State) and an ocean (huge amount of salty water)!
Because I can kind of figure that no one would be interested in all the wonderful little details of my trip, I just write about a couple of things I noticed and try not to write a journal.
I felt it was just super nice to see finally more of the US (people always kept asking we what I`ve seen so far and my answer was more or less just Iowa) and nerdy as I am I was just really interested in history and culture. Too bad, that I just had a week (this is by the way a suggestion to start a revolution for longer breaks in the American school system).
The east cost is really not Iowa. Believe it or not, but there are actually tries (something I miss in the Hawkeye State) and an ocean (huge amount of salty water)!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Sometimes everything is just dump
Today I was able to listen to a wonderful little "speech" (of course also a little sex talk) about life in college. It's always interesting to listen to it, but sometimes I just can't stop thinking "This is all dump. This is sooo much better in Germany". All these people here are stupid." I don't know, but sometimes I just can't help it. I try my best to be open minded but some things here (for example the sex talk) are just ridiculous. I sit there, have this huge smile on my face and people keep wondering why I smile all the time. The people, who also don't get my European jokes.
"And people just started growing boobs."
About two days a ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine. It was more or less about how we experienced puberty as girls/boys as well as in different cultures. And he just said, without thinking too much about it: "And people just started growing boobs." Just random people. Everyone. Just like that. Just from one day to another.
I thought it was sooo hilarious that I was laughing for at least 5 minuets straight. When I was able to breath and act like a human being again, I kept thinking about his little statement.
He just said it out of a second, but there's actually a lot of truth in it. It just seemed like that to him at that time. Pretty funny.
"And people just started growing boobs." is definitely the statement of the week for me. It's probably on of those phrases newspapers will publish as phrase of the week of a popular person, if my friend ever becomes famous (which is most likely the case).
Sunday, March 15, 2009
School massacre in Winnenden, Germany
On March 11, a 17-year old teenage (Tim K.) killed 15 people (9 students, 3 teachers, a passer-by and himself) at his old school in Winnenden, Germany. He used a gun his dad legally owns (his dad is the president of a local gun club). Apparently was Tim K. known for having psychological problems.
I didn´t hear about that until I walked in my Spanish class room at the same day and everyone asked me, if I heard about it. Later that day my History teacher even gave me an article he found on the internet. How did that happen?
Of course I felt it was my duty as a German to find out what was really going on. So I did some research on German news pages, especially on Tagesschau and read some interesting things.
Everyone was totally shocked in the beginning. How and why did that happen? Why did no one help him before? You have to understand that Germany (smaller than Texas) is not used to his kind of event. People talk about violence at schools and how you could protect students and teachers better. But everyone tries to solve the big question: Why did it happen?
And like all the time, it was because he played video games every once in a while. That´s so typical German! Blame everything on video games and suggest a couple of times that it would be perfect if they were illegal.
But after just 5 days, no one even talks about it anymore. No one even wastes one more second thinking about the families of the shot students and Tim K. . I thing that is very sad. You can not just forget about it until it happens again.
Why did Tim K. do that? Was he just incredibly stupid? Another psycho, nothing special? Not worth thinking about? I was thinking about him a lot (I don´t say that he deserves that) but after a while it just starts making me mad at everything and everyone and I fell pointless.
People like Tim K. just stop doing that. If you do that, you show everyone how stupid you are and that´s most definitely not the purpose of your action.
I didn´t hear about that until I walked in my Spanish class room at the same day and everyone asked me, if I heard about it. Later that day my History teacher even gave me an article he found on the internet. How did that happen?
Of course I felt it was my duty as a German to find out what was really going on. So I did some research on German news pages, especially on Tagesschau and read some interesting things.
Everyone was totally shocked in the beginning. How and why did that happen? Why did no one help him before? You have to understand that Germany (smaller than Texas) is not used to his kind of event. People talk about violence at schools and how you could protect students and teachers better. But everyone tries to solve the big question: Why did it happen?
And like all the time, it was because he played video games every once in a while. That´s so typical German! Blame everything on video games and suggest a couple of times that it would be perfect if they were illegal.
But after just 5 days, no one even talks about it anymore. No one even wastes one more second thinking about the families of the shot students and Tim K. . I thing that is very sad. You can not just forget about it until it happens again.
Why did Tim K. do that? Was he just incredibly stupid? Another psycho, nothing special? Not worth thinking about? I was thinking about him a lot (I don´t say that he deserves that) but after a while it just starts making me mad at everything and everyone and I fell pointless.
People like Tim K. just stop doing that. If you do that, you show everyone how stupid you are and that´s most definitely not the purpose of your action.
Spring term
Okay, spring term started now about a week ago, which means a couple of things:
- last term before summer break started :)
- last term before I´ll go back to good-old Germany started :(
... but it also means that I´ll start blogging again. My wonderful English teacher suggested that we should think about our blogs for a little while, before we just start writing something to get credit for it. This is not the purpose of our blogs (I know, it really surprised me, too!).
So I´ve been thinking about it quite a bit (which means I took my time thinking, which means I didn´t blog enough, which means I´m already behind in credits. And all of this just because I tried to do a good job now).
I decided that I would make my little baby (my blog) public now. I´m still not completely sure about that, but it is kind of pointless to just block for yourself.
I changed the name from "A Life" to "foreign viewpoint", because that describes it better.
I also decided to write good blogs on my viewpoint about everything, because I just realized how different I actually thing about many main topics compared to other kids in my age (if you want to know, what I am talking about, you´ll have to read some of my posts).
So much about Spring Term blogging. I hope of course that everyone we´ll enjoy another term of high school life and that this will be a perfect end to a (not just) perfect year.
Am I happy? Yes, I most definitely am!
I think everyone should ask themselves, if they´re happy every once in a while. I think it´s a great start to be the master of your life, of your luck.
- last term before summer break started :)
- last term before I´ll go back to good-old Germany started :(
... but it also means that I´ll start blogging again. My wonderful English teacher suggested that we should think about our blogs for a little while, before we just start writing something to get credit for it. This is not the purpose of our blogs (I know, it really surprised me, too!).
So I´ve been thinking about it quite a bit (which means I took my time thinking, which means I didn´t blog enough, which means I´m already behind in credits. And all of this just because I tried to do a good job now).
I decided that I would make my little baby (my blog) public now. I´m still not completely sure about that, but it is kind of pointless to just block for yourself.
I changed the name from "A Life" to "foreign viewpoint", because that describes it better.
I also decided to write good blogs on my viewpoint about everything, because I just realized how different I actually thing about many main topics compared to other kids in my age (if you want to know, what I am talking about, you´ll have to read some of my posts).
So much about Spring Term blogging. I hope of course that everyone we´ll enjoy another term of high school life and that this will be a perfect end to a (not just) perfect year.
Am I happy? Yes, I most definitely am!
I think everyone should ask themselves, if they´re happy every once in a while. I think it´s a great start to be the master of your life, of your luck.
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