It's been a productive week. I finally got all the letters of permission I need from schools to formally conduct interviews (took long enough...). So I assembled my proposal and sent it off in the mail today. Big fat packet. I learned my lesson from sending a box of semi-important stuff in Greece too—I insured that pack of papers.
After I'd sent the packet though, I got two more notes from schools granting me permission to interview their students. Great timing...now I have to submit another proposal, which is fine actually. I learned tonight that the German version of my questionnaire wasn't quite up to par.
You see, this morning I left Berlin on my monthly trip to Marburg for a medical appointment. The Hauptbahnhof looked lovely as always, the temperature outside was nice and breezy, and it just felt like spring was truly peeking around the corner.
I arrived four and a half hours (and plenty of sleep) later in Gießen, where my old roommate, Ronny, greeted me and picked me up with his mom and dad. I'd never met his parents before, and since they live in the town right next to Marburg, Ronny invited me to stay over with them.
Ronny's parents don't really speak English, so we spent the evening speaking German. Truthfully, I can converse in German fairly well with few problems—as long as I don't have to speak a ton. Once I start running out of vocab, I lose steam quickly. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant evening of catching up.
While Ronny and I stayed home and feasted on pizza, pasta, and salad, Ronny's parents went to a concert. Since we hadn't actually seen each other in a few weeks now that Ronny's back home for a few weeks (and I've since moved to a new place), we decided to revive old traditions and watch Modern Family while eating tons of food. Good times.
Later in the evening, I asked Ronny to look over my questionnaire. It never hurts to have more eyes look at your German, I suppose, and Ronny being my former German teacher would be able to give good feedback. We labored over it for about an hour or so, and then his parents came home. Over some scotch, tea, and croissants, Ronny's mom helped me perfect the wording of my questions.
For the most part, I did okay. But I learned a few things about German that I hadn't quite understood before:
After I'd sent the packet though, I got two more notes from schools granting me permission to interview their students. Great timing...now I have to submit another proposal, which is fine actually. I learned tonight that the German version of my questionnaire wasn't quite up to par.
You see, this morning I left Berlin on my monthly trip to Marburg for a medical appointment. The Hauptbahnhof looked lovely as always, the temperature outside was nice and breezy, and it just felt like spring was truly peeking around the corner.
I arrived four and a half hours (and plenty of sleep) later in Gießen, where my old roommate, Ronny, greeted me and picked me up with his mom and dad. I'd never met his parents before, and since they live in the town right next to Marburg, Ronny invited me to stay over with them.
Ronny's parents don't really speak English, so we spent the evening speaking German. Truthfully, I can converse in German fairly well with few problems—as long as I don't have to speak a ton. Once I start running out of vocab, I lose steam quickly. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant evening of catching up.
While Ronny and I stayed home and feasted on pizza, pasta, and salad, Ronny's parents went to a concert. Since we hadn't actually seen each other in a few weeks now that Ronny's back home for a few weeks (and I've since moved to a new place), we decided to revive old traditions and watch Modern Family while eating tons of food. Good times.
Later in the evening, I asked Ronny to look over my questionnaire. It never hurts to have more eyes look at your German, I suppose, and Ronny being my former German teacher would be able to give good feedback. We labored over it for about an hour or so, and then his parents came home. Over some scotch, tea, and croissants, Ronny's mom helped me perfect the wording of my questions.
For the most part, I did okay. But I learned a few things about German that I hadn't quite understood before:
- The word "academic" always refers to university level work. It doesn't apply much to anything at the secondary level or below. So my questions referring to "academic goals" didn't quite make sense for the young students I interview.
- The word for "experience" is too broad for the way I used it (i.e. "educational experiences"). Apparently, "situation" works better.
- Although I love starting sentences with dependent clauses (like this one), I should always start my questions with the interrogative pronoun at the beginning and the dependent clause at the end.
- Translating thematic topics like "Community Support" and "Systemic Support" is tricky because using the genitive case incorrectly would carry a completely different meaning; it was a good lesson in using prepositions.
As always, I made a few mistakes with adjective endings based on gender, case, and number, which my current roommate, Lenz, helped me minimize last night. After tonight's German lessons, I realize I'll have a much better version to submit to the Berlin Senate when I send in my second proposal in the next week.
Tomorrow I have my doctor's appointment in the morning, and then I catch an afternoon train back to Berlin. Should be home by early evening. Then it's time to get ready for a week long adventure to Italy. The trip will offer a chance for both work and play as I plan to spend some time visiting a UW winter program in Rome. One of the program's themes is education, so it's right down my alley.
Until next time,
Sam
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