Story and history

German uses the same word, die Geschichte, to mean both story and history. Such a blurring of lines is especially interesting given how little we know about what actually happened in history - we have plenty of records, but none can be called completely objective. Some historical facts aren't under question - the Nile did really flood every year, for example. But many parts of history are not nearly as easy to figure, especially when it comes to politics, war, and the why questions.

(Even some so-called facts are up for debate. A friend's favorite story to illustrate this point is the Greek historian Herodotus, whose credentials as a believable source could not be better. He is very careful to note how he came by his information, if it was first-hand, second-hand, third-hand, and so forth. He discusses the credibility of his sources. He tells you if he believes something to be true or not. He's willing to write things that reflect badly on his own people. At a time when many sources reported everything that came to them as fact without distinguishing the reasonable from the absurd, his careful charting of sources and credibility is a wonder. And then he tells you about seeing the flying snakes when he was visiting Saudi Arabia. What should we do with that?)

History matters, in a whole number of ways. One very concrete way is in modern-day territorial disputes, as found in Israel/Palestine or Zimbabwe (or most of the Middle East, Africa, Russia/Eastern Europe and much of Asia. Also Quebec. Occasionally Texas). North America and Western Europe are largely free from having their geography questioned, in large part because they were the ones who drew the geographical lines for everyone else. I digress.

In territorial disputes, history is appealed to as a source of truth and ultimate judge. Both sides in such a dispute declare that their claim to this land or that resource is the first, and therefore must be respected. This looks very pleasant, until you getting clashing views of history. At some point, history (what really happened) and story (what may have happened) get very very confused. That point often comes up very quickly.

Now some might disagree with my definitions of history and story in this context. That's fine. I think the delineation is a helpful one, though, and makes the study of history all the more interesting. Essentially, the more I study history, the more I realize that most of what we know isn't history at all, but story. There's truth in there, but it doesn't look like tidy scientific laws or elementary school textbooks. The truth of stories is always under question, as it should be. Some stories contain truth because they recount something that veritably occurred. Many stories contain truth because they speak to something beyond a recounting of facts: emotions, experiences, reactions, deeply-held opinions. That's mostly how we interact with the world, messy as it is, and one of the reasons I love literature so much.

For all the German's lack of distinguishing between story and history looks like a failure for precision of language, it may actually communicate something more. Story contains truth and history isn't all truth. I think that's really cool.

The Polar Vortex Strikes Back

Except image Darth Vader as a big snowflake, or Snow Miser, or something.

Sorry dude, you're too much

Both the first and second waves of bitter cold are probably no surprise to, oh, all of you, since the entire northern US was hit with chill and snow. The first time around we ended up with over a foot of snow (I have pictures of my car, they're scary); this time around is more just cold. The insides of my windows have ice and frost on them, I've spent most of the past week in a blanket, and I drink ungodly amounts of warm beverages. That last one is nothing new. I found a fantastic recipe for root veggie and ginger soup that I'm planning to make tomorrow.

Because it is so cold, I don't want to move very much. Counterproductive, I know. I really don't want to go outside, except for a few minutes while Peaches proves that teaching animals to use the toilet is probably the best unattainable idea every. She, on the other hand, wants to sniff around and explore. The apartment gets boring after a time, I understand, I just lack an indoor, fenced, heated space for her to dash around and explore. Anyone with ties to a dog-friendly, leash-free place inside, hit me up!

Like last time, I've taken this cold snap/extended dance sequence as a change to hunker down and indulge myself. Between watching The Daily Show and Parks and Recreation, I've also been reading a fascinating book about clothing and textiles in the colonial and federal period. Mostly the clothes and accessories explored are from Colonial Williamsburg, and run from the early-ish 1700s through the very early 1900s. Even though I love pants and don't really like corsets, many of the dresses are just gorgeous. I love the shape they give, and would really enjoy working in Williamsburg sometime if my life takes a different path. Or even if it doesn't, who knows? Summer would be kind of brutal in Virginia. That might just be a price I pay, like October in Salem when our cloaks were mostly for show.

One fascinating detail from the studies of 18th- and 19th- century clothing is that the really nice clothes were usually not made particularly well. They held together just fine and looked lovely, of course, but they wouldn't have been finished on the inside or stitched particularly carefully. Homemade linens - chemises, shifts, shirts, and so on - were often stitched very neatly and carefully. No loose edges, no raggedy bits, finished seams, everything would have been made really well. This was because those homemade, everyday items had to stand up to wear and tear, as well as regular washing and bleaching. Dressy clothes were worn far less often, were not worn next to the body, and would have been sent out to a specialist to be cleaned when necessary. They didn't have to stand up to daily work, body oils, or regular scrubbing, so their construction didn't reflect that concern. The book talked about this difference in the context of what is a "masterful" item, since we often think of such items as being the best specimen of whatever it is they are. While some very impressive wealth displays and beauty can be found in nice clothes, some of the best craftsmanship can be found in much humbler items that required it.

I'm sure there's a deep lesson there somewhere. For instance, write syllabi carefully. Also notes on papers?

Another factoid: indigo dye (the only good blue available at the time) oxidizes and sets upon contact with air. Clothing patterns were often made by stamping an adherent on the clothing and then submerging the whole thing in a dye so the dye stuck to the clothing. The alternative was stamping the clothes themselves. In both circumstances, indigo wouldn't adhere nicely because it would set on the stamp or get all strange in the dyeing vat. The blue parts of 18th-century textiles tends to look a bit sloppy because it was applied by hand with a brush, but quickly. This is true for really nice fabrics like expensive silks as well as much cheaper cottons and wools. All the other colors are perfectly in line, and the blue is just a little smudged.

Probably also a lesson there.

Grad School and the Internet

One of my favorite things about graduate school (and school in general) is the regular interactions with people whose interests and fields of study are foreign or even unknown to me. I love the breadth of information found online, but nothing beats talking to someone who is really into whatever-it-is they are doing.

My university is very interested in a field of study called "digital humanities" - essentially, combining traditional humanities questions and scholarship with ever-improving technology. This ranges from searching two key words together to see how they've turned up in other work to recording volunteers reading in an fMRI machine to see how the brain processes different kinds of reading. That project is actually being undertaken by one of the professors from my department, who is interested in attention and how we train (or don't train) our brains to focus in a world that usually requires multitasking. She looks at how the brain responds to pleasure reading versus focused reading.

Of course the first half of "digital humanities" requires both access to technology and the willingness to use it. For a field devoted to the printed word, this an interesting new road. The use of technology in general has made for a real change in the way humanities scholars and students work - a great deal of information can be found online, we can preview possible works before reading them to see if they look promising, we can search out more keywords than an index can ever provide. This has the benefit of cutting down on the amount of reading of ultimately non-useful information, but also means that research doesn't so often include tangential, possibly interesting chapters. It's something of a trade-off, certainly, but not a dire one. Perhaps not even a negative one.

I confess to remaining very attached to printed books. E-readers (for example) take up far less space, granted, but they don't have that wonderful book smell. Or pages you can dog-ear. Or a dozen other tactile aspects of reading I've grown up with and come to love. Word processing, on the other hand, is a gift from above. I can't even imagine the extra time that went into typewriting, when you couldn't just delete mistakes or  cut and paste paragraphs.

One continually-evolving part of the humanities is the role crowd-produced information and research, like Wikipedia. Like most of my colleagues, I don't consider Wikipedia a scholarly source. Incredibly helpful for a brief summary, yes. Often with correct information, yes. Sometimes with good links off-site, yes. But not to be cited in a paper. Scholarly work not only tells you who the author is, but has gone through some kind of review process.

So here's the question: at what point does group wisdom (or "wisdom") become indistinguishable from that review process? Is the collective opinion of a big enough group enough to equal out the learned opinion of a few editors? There are definitely crazies out there - witness the comment section of, oh, anything - but they seem generally to be outweighed by non-crazies. And academics have their own kind of crazy, which is sometimes not weeded out thanks to the norms of scholarship and professorial work. I'm not convinced that Wikipedia can ever take over scholarly work, to be honest. That's probably not a bad thing. But any professor or teaching assistant can tell you that students are often convinced the two are interchangeable. I wonder if I'll be proved wrong.

Priorities, people!

My "Intro to Graduate Studies" class just had me read a book about how to survive grad school and find a job. Most of it was fairly useful. I hope that I'll be able to reference it again as I get through the various stages of grad school

But. There's always a but. In discussing time management, the author talks about how hard it is to find time for research, teaching, and family. He suggests that grad students hold off having a family until they've graduated at least, or have a non-working spouse. If one can't manage such a thing, he says, one must be aware that something's gotta give. And that something cannot be your research. Oh no. It's sleep.

Now I don't mean to say that graduate students (or professors) should do poorly at their jobs. And part of that job is research and writing. But it seems like this particular author has taken a leaf out of the business playbook and decreed that unless you give 250% for the rest of your life, you might as well give up now. And I don't think that's healthy. Every job has push and pull. Every job has time management issues. If you are talking to a bunch of graduate students and advising them that they need to be chronically sleep-deprived in order to have a life outside of work? Something's wrong with your view of the world.

Sure, there will be times when this happens. And sure, being both a grad student and a professor is more than a 40-hour-a-week job. But it doesn't have to be 80 hours a week. It could be 50. And there should be regular breaks. I wish the author would have told his readers that students should take a good hard look at whether winning the career game is worth the things they'll give up, instead of assuming that's the path they'll take. Because for me? I'll do my work well. And it won't just be a 40-hour workweek. And sometimes the rest of my life will have to be the thing put on hold until the current project is finished. But time to sleep, exercise, read for pleasure, and recharge are worth not being The Ultimate Grad Student or The Ultimate Professor.

I just finished training to volunteer for the local sexual assault hotline. (Intense. Really intense.) One of the most important things we talked about was self-care - the things you do to help yourself relax and be happy even when the world around you isn't happy. Taking some times - ten minutes, an hour, a day - away from workworkwork is part of self-care. It's part of keeping the thing you love from driving you insane. And it's necessary, no matter how much other people want to shame you for daring to care for yourself sometimes.

I've been keeping a running list of things I do and don't want to do when I'm teaching a class. It includes things like "for lower-level classes, give a bunch of small assignments and grade them fairly instead of inflating. That way, you can also grade the papers more fairly and not feel like you're torpedoing the students' chance of success". After this book, I added "never tell students that their work should be their one and only. Remember that everyone has a life outside of study, outside of work, and that is a very good thing".

Of course these ideas can be hard when you really just want someone to pour heart and soul into your class. It has become my new goal to tell students that yes, they need to work hard, but no, their work isn't the most important thing ever. Sometimes other things are important. If you're working well, if you're not using it as an excuse for mediocrity, never feel guilty about recognizing when something else takes over that importance slot.

Visiting privileges

A dear friend of mine has been a second-grade teacher in Detroit for the past year. Her working life is far more difficult than mine ever was, for all the obvious reasons. But she's brilliant and talented, and she had a bunch of awesome ideas to expose her students to the wider world. One of these ideas was for her friends to send postcards from wherever-we-were to her class, allowing them to see and dream about far-away places they might visit one day. So I sent a bunch of postcards from Europe and on Friday went for a visit, bringing pictures along with.

I learned that second-graders are very wiggly, especially when they've already been in school for seven or eight hours. Like my German students, when reminded of what they were supposed to do, mostly they did it. Usually they then forgot, and I can understand. It's no fun to sit still and be quiet and attentive for hours when all you want is to be somewhere else.

I learned that second-graders are very curious in the best possible way. I brought a dozen or so pictures along to show them - cats in Corsica, the Porta Nigra in Trier, my school - and they had questions about every single one. They also had questions about the things that adults, recognizing the "main point" of a picture, never think to question. What's that fence doing to the side of this historical building? (Hiding construction equipment, it turns out.) Why did that man get banished into a clock that now sticks out its tongue at you every hour? (He stole things and played tricks, which led to several minutes of attempts by the students to catalog what exactly it was that he stole.) What is that statue standing on? (A pedestal.) Why? (I have no idea, because I'd always just accepted that statues stand on pedestals.) Maybe I shouldn't just accept such things. Why exactly is it that statues stand on pedestals? I'm sure it has something to do with a uniform base and such, but is that all?

I learned that second graders sometimes forget what you've told them as soon as the words are out of your mouth. Are there restaurants and zoos in New Jersey? (I don't know, I've never been to New Jersey.) In New Jersey, do people like to go to the zoo? (Uh...I don't know.)

Saturday morning we went to Eastern Market, an enormous farmer's market selling everything from produce to spices to bread to succulents. You could do your whole week's worth of grocery shopping there. It smells amazing, as farmer's markets always do.

I concluded the visit with the Detroit Institute of Art, which has an amazing collection of artwork including (in my friends' words) "that culmination of centuries of art and innovation: home decorations" . The DIA houses Van Gogh, Islamic calligraphy, African masks, and American (both North and South) carvings, among hundreds of other works. The masks were especially interesting, both in their size and their displays of community ideals.

Detroit on the whole may be going through a hard time, and I don't want to make light of that situation. But I was privileged enough to see some of its very bright spots: its art, its produce, and its future. And question the entire point of pedestals.

Appropriations committee

A short but entertaining piece on the BBC about the German use of English words. The funny thing is, Germans use English words all the time - almost constantly, in fact - and so Chancellor Merkel's adoption of one is not all that odd to me. Even my most reluctant students talk about das Email, der Computer, ein Hacker, and die Information.

English was created from German and Latin/French; German has been taking words, especially those to do with technology, from English for decades now. It's actually funny to me how much non-German speakers can figure out on menus or street signs because German and English are so close. They're only getting closer.

Today at the train station...

Part of commuting regularly by public transportation is seeing the same people along your route nearly every day. I wait for my train with Black-Haired Bouffant Businesswoman and Perpetually Scared-Looking Woman with Bangs. On Fridays (when I go in an hour later) I am forced to share the platform with Sporty Green-Headphoned Smoking Woman. When it's raining she sits inside the shelter and smokes me out like an exterminator does pests; I always consider asking if she's seen the rather prominent no smoking signs. I think I picked up a healthy dose of Britishness while in England and have never done so.

I also see the same train conductors and one doesn't bother asking for my ticket anymore. That's a fun little perk, especially on the day after my monthlong pass expired and I forgot to buy a new one.

These people may be my commuting regulars, but sometimes the train station serves up a heaping dose of weirdness as well. Today I caught the later train home from work and so had to go all the way to the central train station rather than my usual stop. First I met two middle-aged men with very long beards that were braided from chin to somewhere near their navels. Then, while walking through the entrance hall, I came upon a group of ten or so young men all wearing hot pink cheetah-print bathrobes and drinking beer at the the little restaurant/bar. Alas, I couldn't figure out how to take a picture furtively. On reflection, perhaps they wouldn't have minded if I wasn't furtive, as they definitely weren't.

In addition to meeting several odd people, today marked my last official commute and my last official day of work. Through a quirk of my program, I cannot work anymore even though the school year doesn't end until next week Friday. In typically German bureaucratic style, I am in fact forbidden from working because I'm no longer insured by the state and if something were to happen, the school would have to pay for it. So today was something of an emotional day, saying a series of goodbyes and wishing my classes well. Thankfully we have a staff barbeque next week Thursday where I'll make my official goodbyes to my colleagues, meaning that I can have my emotions in two small doses instead of one overwhelming day.

My favorite part of today was the student who informed me that I am "much better than a dictionary" and I may make business cards to say just that.

How to succeed in a foreign country without missing home too much

I really like Germany. I've enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to live and work here for the past nine months; the idea that it will come to an end in three weeks is both hard to believe and sad. I am fortunate enough to live in a time when world travel is both possible and easy (if rather pricey and stressful sometimes), so I can say with some certainty that this will not be my last time in Germany. Despite that, I will miss my colleagues, my job, my friends, the language, döner kebabs, and the place I've called home.

That does not mean, however, that my time here has been all sunshine and roses.

The entire winter, for example, was cloudy. And grey.

Sometimes you really just want to have a normal conversation in English, without having to coach a reluctant student through unknown vocabulary. My colleagues are fluent and friendly, but there's something different about talking with a native speaker, especially one with whom you have inside jokes.

A couple things have allowed me to read and hear English on a regular basis. I highly recommend them to anyone who is traveling in a foreign country, has access to the internet, and just wants a taste of home.

Thing 1: The Daily Show. John Stewart is hilarious and the studio audience laughs along with me, unlike Germans. Germans aren't big into displays of humor.

Thing 2: The Colbert Report. Ditto. As an added bonus, you can watch both shows from anywhere in the world (or at least in Europe). For reasons unknown to me, they are not part of the "if you don't live in the country where this was produced, that's too bad for you, nya-nya-nya" rules that accompany pretty much every other thing on television.

Thing 3: My home library. In addition to its collection of real books - and I will be reveling in that collection soon enough - it has a number of electronic resources. I have downloaded audiobooks and ebooks all year with great joy and had a grand old time not working so hard to understand every single page. Don't ask me about reading children's books in German. No fun. I think many libraries have a partnership with a company called Overdrive, which provides these electronic resources. Check it out if you're so inclined.

Thing 4: Skype. Seriously, how did the world survive before video calling? I've had my bouts of homesickness both in Germany and while at college, and Skype has been a lifeline. I talk with family and friends regularly. It's nice to feel like I'm still somehow part of these important people's lives even though I'm across an ocean.

Thing 5: Chocolate. Sometimes you just need it. Chocolate is delicious.

So there you go. Along with actually liking the place where you live, making friends, and having a purpose for being wherever-you-are, this is my formula for living abroad. Feel free to add any other stress-relievers or tricks that you know.

Weekday quiet

It's a recurring, overused, beat-the-dead-horse joke that the United States has a lot of space and Europe does not, comparatively speaking. I'm of the opinion that the difference in space is at the root of many differences, political and personal, but that gets into "serious discussion" territory. Instead, let me show you two pictures.

Picture #1

Picture #2

Two "suburbs", separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Obviously Picture #1 is American and Picture #2 German, as indicated by the space differences. The American suburb has single-family homes, front yards (albeit small ones), trees, and houses set back from the street. The German neighborhood (Europe doesn't have suburbs quite like the States, but this is a reasonable approximation) has a row of houses on either side, all sharing at least one and often two walls with a neighbor. You walk out your front door and there is the street, just a step down. No front yards, no green space, no sprawl. German homes are very compact.

At the end of the street here is a little park and the Rhine River. In the States, where anyone not living in a city has their own green patch, parks are nice but not particularly crowded unless they have a play structure for children. If you want to sit outside after dinner on a nice spring evening, you do so on your deck or on your porch or in your front lawn or whatever. In Germany, where a few lucky people have a balcony, the green spaces are overrun on nice weekends. This past weekend was gorgeous: mid-60s, sunny, hint of a breeze. It's a very pleasant time to stroll along the Rhine, as I and everyone else from the area proceeded to do. And everyone who wasn't strolling was covering the small green space with blankets, picnic baskets, portable grills, and lawn chairs. The sheer number of people here, where usually we have the construction workers and the period person+dog, was a little startling. Certainly there are places in the States that are equally busy during certain times of the year. At home, there's a park where everyone goes to watch the fireworks on July 4th. But I've never seen a public green space quite so full of people, so constantly.

The close proximity of so many people does not mean that we're all friends and hang out and have one big barbeque together. Quite the contrary - Germans are good at pretending like the other people they live so near don't exist. It's probably the only way to get around the fact that you have very little private space. But it was really nice to see so many disparate groups spending time in this green space for a weekend together. Groups of teenage friends, elderly couples, families, and single walkers all moved around one another like currents in the river.

And today? Well, I have Mondays off because I'm spoiled rotten, but nearly everyone else has to work. The park is nearly deserted except for a young mother and her young child, and only a few people are walking their dogs along the river. Everything is very quiet. I'm headed out for yet another walk and bask, all by myself. I think I prefer the quiet, as a ferocious introvert, but there is a loss of energy with the loss of so many other people.

Here comes the sun!

About a week ago, I complained that it was freezing-winter-cold but without any snow.

(To any who wonder if the glamor that is life abroad in Europe ever settles into a same-old-same-old routine, that post should answer your question. I stumble through teaching over three hundred children every week, I conduct my life in a second language, I'm living in Germany, and the best I can come up with is a discussion on the weather.)

I'm afraid the atmospheric-based discussions haven't quite ended.

Today was a gorgeous day. Fifty-something degrees, sunny, a slight breeze, and a whole day to enjoy the outdoors contributed to a very positive mood. I walked to the city center instead of taking a bus and didn't wear my coat because I didn't need it. Glorious.

This evening I came back to my room and read for a while, which is something I love to do and feel very fortunate that I have the time to indulge. After my lovely day in the sunshine I was kind of sad about evening coming and bringing the dark. Winter in the northern hemisphere brings a lot of dark. I'm tired of it. Even in the daytime, winter has this odd blue/grey cast to it. Witness this picture from my previous post:

Very blue

 And this one that I took earlier in the winter:

Grey. Also, snowing. Still.

But spring is starting to make its way forward, and the light changes too. There's a particular time of the evening when the entire view out my window becomes all orange and warm. Directly across the river are some cliffs that turn coppery and even the trees, still bare this time of year, go the cinnamon-brown of melted chocolate instead of the cold grey of a winter storm.

Today, around six in the evening

Forgive the poor picture, and the constant presence of construction equipment. Notice the orange rocks and how the trees look a little pinkish/reddish/brown. If I'm in my room at this time of the day I always stop and just stare out the window for the five minutes or so that it lingers. I feel cozy and warmed. Even when pitted against the glory that is full, sunny daytime, sunset may be my favorite time of day right now.

Of course tonight, walking back from my Zumba class, I might see all the stars over the river and the fortress lit up a little down the way, and then I wonder if a clear night isn't my favorite time.

It's a German thing

We're talking about jobs in my ninth-grade class, and on Tuesday started to describe the skills needed for different paths of employment. I asked the students to think of a job they may want to do in a few years, and make a little word map regarding the skills, positives, and negatives of that job. Then I wandered about as they did so and tried to translate the un-translatable jobs they wished to perform (turns out there's a general word for someone who works in an office). Happily, the teacher I'm assisting has a smartphone with a German-English dictionary.

I also chided some French exchange students who spoke no English and little German, because I thought they were just not doing their work. Oops. My actual students quickly corrected me. The struggles of only seeing a class once a week.

With word maps finished, we shared some of the attributes of their chosen jobs. The students told me about what was needed to be a nurse, engineer, banker, police officer, lawyer, and computer repairperson. I asked if anyone had picked a creative job, like interior designer, actor, musician, or even a museum guide. Please guess how many people raised their hands.


Got a number in your head?


Remember that number.


You'll want it in just a minute. Ready?


Zero. Not a single person in a class of thirty had chosen a profession in either the humanities or creative sectors. And this is a class of ninth-graders, with four more years to go before they have to take their big final exams. They weren't choosing their jobs, they weren't declaring anything, they were just picking something they might be interested in to write about for a classroom exercise and they all picked very practical, useful jobs. I was flabbergasted. I said so, and told them that an American classroom would definitely have included some aspiring actors, singers, artists, or communications majors. They looked at me with polite disbelief, as if I'd walked into the classroom wearing Princess Beatrice's hat from the royal wedding. I gave them the same look. It was a fascinating sociological clash.

Later, talking to a friend about this, she said that such a response is very typical for Germans. The students may have indeed cherished secret dreams of becoming the next big actor or actress, but these dreams are considered non-serious and possibly a bit shameful. Definitely they remain a secret. I told her about the American slogan that you can achieve anything you want, and she laughed at me. Germans don't say that, she said, because it isn't true. We don't tell our children they can do whatever they want because they can't.

Yikes. Part of me feels like German students miss out on something important by not hearing this message. Then again, Germany has one of the strongest economies in the world, along with one of the highest standards of living. I've not seen Germans unhappy with their lives, they just enjoy themselves outside of work. The concept of not loving your job - or at least not wanting to love it, in an ideal world - is entirely foreign to me.


On a totally different note, I found Hobbit-themed super-sweet fake chai at the grocery store. Did I buy it? You bet I did!

Tastiness, plus Elrond. Win-win.

Giving Thanks

Today is an odd day to be in Germany. At home my family is preparing to eat Thanksgiving dinner, students have a half-week vacation, and stores are full-to-bursting with turkeys, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, and canned pumpkin. I can definitely find potatoes here in Germany but the rest of it is hard to come by, especially the gathering of family.

I'm fortunate enough to go home for Christmas, and I only have four weeks until my flight to the US, but that doesn't make Thanksgiving away from home any easier. There is something to be said for the food and the stomach pains after consuming it all, but Thanksgiving is about friends and family more than anything, and most of them aren't here.

So I feel a little sad today. But, happily, mostly I feel thankful - 'tis the season, after all - for what I have here. Therefore, a list:

1. I'm thankful for friends and neighbors, with whom I am going to have a little Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night. I'm not alone here, and that feels really good.
2. I'm thankful for my job and colleagues, many of whom not only asked after my emotional health with being away from home for this holiday, but have made my time in Germany a wonderful, worthwhile experience. I'm thankful for them today and every day.
3. I'm thankful to my friends and family back home, who have supported me through Skype, emails, and Facebook posts. I miss them, and I'm excited to see them at Christmas or next summer (depending on geography).
4. I'm thankful for my students, who listen to me even though I have no idea what I'm doing, and who provide me with enough funny stories to make my sides ache for weeks on end.
5. I'm thankful for the internet. It provides me with a link back home and hours of entertainment in English, when I just don't want to work so hard.
6. Rounding out this incomplete list, I'm thankful for the kind Germans who patiently help through their language and country. I've felt nothing but welcome since coming to Germany, even from total strangers who work in the cathedral treasury and compliment my German.

Tomorrow or the day after I'll be back with crazy stories, but for now, thanks y'all.


Postscript: okay, one funny story - in explaining the concept of Thanksgiving to one class, one of my students asked "but who are you thanking?" and I explained that for some people it's God or a god, and others are just generally thankful. "I understand with the church and God" he said, "but if you aren't go to church, I don't think it's very good to thank, because you thank yourself. It's like bragging."

Now for something slightly different

It's been a fairly quiet, normal sort of week for me. I went back to school on Thursday and don't plan on any more surprise week-long vacations - rest is good, but I find that too much rest is just boring. I like to have something to do that feels worth doing.

In about an hour I'm headed to a tiny town in Germany called Mörstadt, where my great-grandmother was born and her extended family still lives, to visit my cousins. I seem to be related to three-quarters of the town, based on a ten-minute tour that included explaining my relationship to nearly everyone buried in the little cemetery. It feels odd to me to call everyone I come across "cousin," but so this visit will go. Several of my cousins of varying degrees grow grapes and make wine, and I wonder if I might be able to see the winery.

In talking to my friend J about education reform last night, I realized that the German education system remains a mystery to most non-Germans (including me). Keep in mind I'm no expert on this, and please correct me if I say anything wrong.

Like in the States, German school children begin their education between the ages of 5 and 6 in a primary school, called Grundschule. At age 10, they can go into one of two tracks: Realschule or Gymnasium. Actually there are more than two options, but every state in Germany has a different system and the systems are changing, so we'll stick to the two I know best from my own state. When a student finishes Grundschule, their previous work, grades, and parental preferences dictate if they go into a Realschule or Gymnasium. Realschule goes until 10th grade, after which a student goes into an apprenticeship situation based on their abilities. For example, a student who is good at math may go into an apprenticeship to be an accountant, with part of their time spent at school and part of their time spent in training at a company that uses accountants. Realschule students don't usually go to university.

Gymnasium, where I work, goes until 12th or 13th grade, after which the students take a large exit exam (Abitur), much like England's system. This exam is not, so far as I can tell, like the SAT or ACT in the States. Gymnasium students often do go to university and become things like lawyers, doctors, and teachers. Teachers in Germany are well-trained (6 or 7 years of training) and well-paid, making education a desirable profession.

An interesting thing I've noted when talking with my students is the lack of American Dream "what I want to be when I grow up" ideas. Even my 10th and 12th grade students, who are about the same age or a little older than their US counterparts, usually answered my question about their preferred employment by saying that they would know what field they would study after they took the Abitur exam and got their scores back. Of course I can't generalize to all of Germany or all German students, but the German system doesn't seem to put the same sort of emphasis on "doing whatever you want to do!" or "following your passion" - certainly some people seem to enjoy their jobs, but many others view a job as something you do to live and enjoy their lives after work. The German education system sorts students by capability and provides them training in a field in which they excel, but the students' own passions don't seem to be a big part of it. On the one hand, unemployment is very low in Germany. The government will ensure that you have a job that supports you, even if it's not a job you particularly like. On the other hand, I don't hear my students super excited about what the future has in store for them. This isn't unique to Germany - anyone who's talked with American 16-year-olds can report a similar vibe - but it does seem more pronounced here.

Like so many of the differences between the States and Europe, it seems to boil down to the realization that both systems work. Both systems also need reformation, however, and I wonder what we might borrow from one another in the future.

Thoughts? Questions? Proclamations? Creeds?