adding insult to injury

...or why living in a tourist city can really get you down.

Pretty much no matter where I sit in the old-city library, I will encounter tourists. Either they are pausing to read over my shoulder, holding their huge cameras out of the way, or they are taking pictures in the entryway - blocking every door, or i can see them from my seat by the window...walking around the green castle gardens, teeth glinting in the sun as they pose for the picture that may or may not end up in a coffee table photo album.

photo from here

Honestly, I don't really have a problem with tourists. Its just. Well. They remind me that I am in fact NOT a tourist. I am NOT on vacation. I can NOT spend carefree hours strolling around the castle, window shopping along the Hauptstraße, walking by volume upon volume in the library with no need to pick any of them up.

Some day I will be a tourist. on vacation. strolling aimlessly. And when that day is, I will take care to smile with compassion at the people who actually live there. In that tourist destination. Who have to work and study and fulfill the obligations of day to day life. Which is what I must do this very minute... ~love~

on cultural differences

sometimes cultural differences are profound. sometimes they are downright silly. take, for example, cake. being in germany has made me rethink my definition of cake. stop for a minute. what makes something a cake? what constitutes bread? here is a re-creation of a conversation that i have had with more than one german on the subject of my mom's famous pumpkin bread (an international hit!)

me: here, do you want to have some pumpkin bread?

german: sure ... mmm, this is good, but its not bread, its cake.

me: what do you mean its cake? i baked it in a bread pan. its bread

german: but its sweet

me: well, thats true. but there is no frosting. its bread. we're having something else for dessert.

for the record, i could probably come up with a sassy retort referring to the fact that germans eat sweet, not salty popcorn, but i think i'll just let it be.

the thing is, people talk about culture, cultural differences and culture shock a lot. and i used to believe that all of these things would have a definition, a formula, and/or be logical. they are not. i find that my understanding of both german culture and my own culture is constantly changing - deepening, maturing. i am constantly bumping up against these cultural differences, but they are like furniture in a dark room, i can't see them coming and i can't always tell you their exact shape.

sometimes these differences are quite meaningful. they unveil a whole new way of understanding the world in which i live and the place that i have come from. lately, i have been looking back on my thoughts on culture and the way that they have evolved over the last (almost) three years here.

after a few months in germany, i probably said something about punctuality. after 6 months, i said empathy was one of the biggest differences. after a year, probably responsibility and self-motivation. after two years i began developing my sense of germans sort of "looking out for one another", because history taught them what can happen when people get desperate. this leads to an extensive welfare system, people giving up their seats on trains, and general friendliness. it also causes strangers to chide me for crossing the street when the light is red, riding my bike with a skirt on and informing me that i need to oil my bike chain.

i can list so many differences, but the thing is, listing them doesn't define germany or germans - in the same way that listing characteristics of american or western culture define america or the west or me. we are greater than the sum of our parts - this thing we call culture, these values that are instilled in the people who come from the same area and experience the same history - is just one of the many things that influences who a person is.

i will probably never come to a "conclusion" about the cultural differences between the states and germany. i will probably never have an answer for the ever popular question: "so, what is the biggest difference between germany and the states?" and that is exactly as it should be. ~love~

read aloud

As I establish who I am as a teacher, I think back to the things that I loved most in school. From day one of teaching my class of littlest kids (thats right...the ones who asked me if I could speak German as I was speaking German with them...love) I started reading them picture books. There is something so magical about the marriage of pictures and words that builds bridges of understanding. Plus, I love reading picture books. I have almost exhausted the library's collection. Well, of books that I find enchanting. I love knowing that when I love something, they will love it too. And I love it when they beg for another book when the first one is over.

Last week, I started thinking about read-aloud for one of my older classes. It started with looking for Encyclopedia Brown (remember, these kids are kind of obsessed with mysteries) ... which led to finding From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, another childhood favorite ... which led to The BFG. I checked out all three and have been wandering through childhood read-aloud books for the past few days. Although I have come to the conclusion that it is too close to summer vacation to start any short novel, I have decided that, come fall, I will start reading aloud a chapter of one of these books every week. I am pretty excited.

Now go read a childhood favorite. ~love~

oh say can you see

Sometime in January, a friend from work asked me if I woud be interested in going to a women's world cup game in July. In Februray, another friend and I put our names in the official FIFA drawing for tickets (the cheaper version to my work friends' ticket purchasing endeavor). In March, I heard that we got tickets in the best category. In June, I picked up my tickets at the post office. On July 2, we FINALLY saw the game! It was so wonderful.

Now, obviously women's soccer isn't as big of a deal as men's soccer, as exciting as that would be, but there is a fair amount of hype surrounding the women's world cup (WWC) here, as the German team is the 2x reiging champ, and due to the fact that it is in Germany this year. The stadium was full. Now, for those that don't know (everyone) - the games are taking place in stadiums all across Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden to name a few) and one such stadium is just a 30 minute train ride from me (so close, in fact, that many teams playing in Sinsheim are being put up in the hotel at the end of my street!) We arrived with a little extra time to find our seats (since we bought tickets seperately, we were sitting in two different areas).

Martha and I were pretty excited to find that our seats were in the first row in the Northwest corner of the field! We were also pretty excited to sing along with the national anthem (like the good choir kids that we still are in our hearts)

Watching the US women defeat Columbia 3-0 was definitely a highlight of my summer thus far. I am reminded time and again how cool it is to be a part of a big group of strangers. (think back a long way to my post about Oktoberfest...) From the moment we got on the train, to the moment we stepped off after our return journey, that energy specific to sports and concerts was palpable in the air.

However, I was a bit puzzled by the wardrobe choices of many of the game-goers. Outfits and/or flags included (but were not by any means limited to): Lots of Germany gear like huge flags, facepaint and jerseys (heads up Germans, Thomas Müller, Phillip Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger are not in fact playing in this particular world cup...), a large Welsh flag, a Canada sweatshirt, and a Swedish flag. We're apparently very international here.

Anyway, just a little update on my birthday present to myself :) ~love~

on friendship

I am incredibly blessed. That sentence was going to continue, but really, that is just it. I am incredibly blessed. I have the most amazing group of family and friends as rockstar cheerleaders, I just don't know how other people survive with anything less (this is not to dimish other families and other friends - I'm sure they're all great too...)

And the thing about it is, that I have such amazing friends, who have incredible hopes and ambitions, and this (combined with my nomadic dreaming) means that we get to treasure a beautiful friendship together for a period of time that is always way too short, and then they go off to change the world, expand thier brains, challenge thier hearts, and experience new things. That is when our friendship goes into the long distance phase of long phone calls, letters, messages, emails, and really powerful thoughts that bind us together across the miles, albeit less tangibly and less time-intensive than before. But the love that was there, it stays. And it is beautiful.

Last week I had to say goodbye to a dear friend and kindrid spirit here in Germany. No more coffee dates where we really really meant to be super productive but talked for three hours instead. No more panicked phone calls: "I'm throwing up, can you cover my class for me?" No more lesson-planning teamwork, discussing how crazy Germans are, planning scavenger-hunts for a joint session of our classes. No more late night philosophizing. But I can say that I am beyond privigiled to know this incredible woman, and I could not be happier for her next step - it's the right one. I just wish it didn't mean leaving "Germ"* *one of many classic Emily-isms

Also last week, I had the privilige of being the very first to congratulate in person my dear friends Abbey and Greg on their engagement. Not only that, I got to show them my home here for three wonderful days. They were just as taken with Heidelberg as I am (take that, Rick Steves!). We wandered the Schwetzinger Gardens, climbed the Heiligenberg at dusk (and hiked back down amidst fireflies in the dark - ok, maybe that is making it sound more romantic and a lot less scary than it actually was...I like that version better) but mostly we just loved each other. Abbey is a kindrid spirit, a bosom friend if you will (Diana to my Anne, - or maybe I'm Diana to her Anne) Anyway, it did my soul a whole lot of good to share my life here with them and to have a communion of hearts.

My cup runneth over. ~love~

Little Mirrors

I think that everyone who works with kids has moments where they look into a child's face and suddenly everything is stripped away. Every time this happens, I am caught off guard. I am suddenly transported back to my childhood and I not only remember what it was like, I feel that faint beating of my childhood heart and the ticking of my childhood brain as it was then.

This morning in the kindergarten, I of course got the skinny on the sub:

We played some games. He's really good at crafts! I couldn't play anymore because I know all of the colors and kept telling everyone instead of letting them figure it out. He didn't know your hello song.

And then I was a child again:

He can't speak German and I didn't understand everything.

I know that feeling of wanting to understand everything - and settling for nothing less. In her earnest eyes, I found a little mirror. I think language learning will be hard for her. It was (is) for me. It is embarrassing to admit you don't know something. Or even worse, using the wrong word (I just wanted to comment that the weather is quite humid. What? I said it was gay? Oh how embarrassing!) It takes a lot of courage and a lot more "getting over yourself" to walk into a room, pick up a phone, stand up in front of a group and know that you probably won't understand everything. Some people get over that quickly. I know, I've met them. I teach them. But many of us struggle with not knowing. I hope that I can help teach these precious souls that it is ok, even good, to not understand everything and to embrace that scary unknown. In doing so, I hope that I can continue to learn that lesson myself. ~love~

Good Teacher? Bad Teacher?

So, I bribed my students to be good for the subs. I know that it worked when my crazy kindergarteners were reported to be "such well behaved kids!" by the sub. Either that, or I am a terrible teacher. Or my conception of "well behaved kids" is different. I'm going to decide to believe that they took me very seriously when I told them (in my most solemn voice) that I want them to be even better for the sub than they usually are for me.

For that reason, I am about to bake a batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies.

I honestly can't wait to see all those kids tomorrow. I've had a hard time getting into a rhythm since I've been back - something along the lines of needing a vacation from my vacation...

I think practicing being a good teacher is just what the doctor ordered. ~love~