This morning, I had to wake up early to go volunteer at a school. As usual, I fell asleep on the 40 minute bus ride. When I woke up just a few stops from the school though, sitting next to me was one of my students. Funny. He'd spied me in the back, so he plopped himself down next to me, even as I snoozed.
After I snapped out of my groggy funk though, I realized he should've already been in class, so I asked him if he was late. Yep. He was. Then at the next stop, another one of my students got on the bus too and joined us in the back. He was late too.
Although I gave him a bit of a hard time for being late, it was kind of amusing sitting in the back of the bus with them. Here I was hanging out with two 14 year old students as if I was part of their crew. They ended up getting off at an earlier stop (I think to stop by a store), but they said they'd see me at school soon.
Of course, since I got off at the closest bus stop to the school, I beat them. Outside the classroom, I saw a third student in the class I work with, waiting outside because he had also arrived late. Today just seemed like the day every kid was late. We had a nice little chat, and he told me where he lived. He didn't live all that far away, but he left a few minutes too late.
My days volunteering at the school are typically full of short, broken English sessions. By this, I mean the pairs of students with whom I meet are supposed to chat with me in English. But more often than not, they end up speaking in German. So I have to pretend I don't understand (not that difficult), even though I understand just about everything they say.
Today, the teacher asked me to discuss current events with them, particularly the recent tragedy in Japan. Frankly, I was impressed with the amount these 7th and 8th graders knew about the situation in Japan. They mentioned the earthquake, the ensuing tsunami, the nuclear reactors, and the danger of winds carrying radioactive materials, etc. I'm pretty sure each of them knew more about current events than many students at my own university. Sad, but not at all unlikely.
In fact, one young boy asked me if we could also discuss the situation in Libya. I said, "Sure, go ahead." So he went on to explain about the struggle between Libyan rebels and followers of Quaddafi in Libya. How many 8th graders do you know can explain that in a foreign language? Granted, he switched to German in the middle of his description because he felt it was too difficult to explain in English. Nevertheless, I was impressed.
It will be sad to not be able to visit them as often in the next month and a half because of my research. But I have one more visit on Thursday with my friend, Ariel. That should be fun. She arrived from France tonight, and I picked her up at the airport. Really great to see old friends from Seattle. Plus Ariel and I both studied in Berlin together in 2007, so it was kind of cool to be back in Berlin together this time.
We made pasta at home, and as I usually do, I ate way too much. I thought I'd work it off with some Wii boxing, but I was way too full. In any case, we tried to set up Ariel's bed, which is the pull out couch in our living room. However, neither Lenz nor I had ever figured out how to get it to fully open up. It's really quite confusing.
After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to look up instructions online. I found the name of the couch design on a small sticker and Googled it. Turns out the design is from a company in New York. We found their website but no instructions. So we thoughts, "Ok, let's give them a call and ask for instructions." So with my Google phone, we called the store in SoHo and asked the lady if she could explain how to open the bed. I wonder how often she gets questions like that. :)
Thankfully, she explained it to us perfectly and, within minutes, we'd figured it out. I'm pretty sure she didn't know we had just called her from Berlin on my computer to ask her how to open our sofa bed. Gotta love technology.
Tomorrow morning, I am going to go pick up my friend, Joan, and then the three of us will go around Berlin to hopefully see some stuff we haven't seen before. I also need to translate a three-page article from English to German for my old roommate, Swen. He asked for my help with translating it, and I'm going to do my best. I think it would've been easier if I had to do it from German to English, but this will be good practice for me anyway.
Pictures will return again soon, I'm sure. :)
Sam
After I snapped out of my groggy funk though, I realized he should've already been in class, so I asked him if he was late. Yep. He was. Then at the next stop, another one of my students got on the bus too and joined us in the back. He was late too.
Although I gave him a bit of a hard time for being late, it was kind of amusing sitting in the back of the bus with them. Here I was hanging out with two 14 year old students as if I was part of their crew. They ended up getting off at an earlier stop (I think to stop by a store), but they said they'd see me at school soon.
Of course, since I got off at the closest bus stop to the school, I beat them. Outside the classroom, I saw a third student in the class I work with, waiting outside because he had also arrived late. Today just seemed like the day every kid was late. We had a nice little chat, and he told me where he lived. He didn't live all that far away, but he left a few minutes too late.
My days volunteering at the school are typically full of short, broken English sessions. By this, I mean the pairs of students with whom I meet are supposed to chat with me in English. But more often than not, they end up speaking in German. So I have to pretend I don't understand (not that difficult), even though I understand just about everything they say.
Today, the teacher asked me to discuss current events with them, particularly the recent tragedy in Japan. Frankly, I was impressed with the amount these 7th and 8th graders knew about the situation in Japan. They mentioned the earthquake, the ensuing tsunami, the nuclear reactors, and the danger of winds carrying radioactive materials, etc. I'm pretty sure each of them knew more about current events than many students at my own university. Sad, but not at all unlikely.
In fact, one young boy asked me if we could also discuss the situation in Libya. I said, "Sure, go ahead." So he went on to explain about the struggle between Libyan rebels and followers of Quaddafi in Libya. How many 8th graders do you know can explain that in a foreign language? Granted, he switched to German in the middle of his description because he felt it was too difficult to explain in English. Nevertheless, I was impressed.
It will be sad to not be able to visit them as often in the next month and a half because of my research. But I have one more visit on Thursday with my friend, Ariel. That should be fun. She arrived from France tonight, and I picked her up at the airport. Really great to see old friends from Seattle. Plus Ariel and I both studied in Berlin together in 2007, so it was kind of cool to be back in Berlin together this time.
We made pasta at home, and as I usually do, I ate way too much. I thought I'd work it off with some Wii boxing, but I was way too full. In any case, we tried to set up Ariel's bed, which is the pull out couch in our living room. However, neither Lenz nor I had ever figured out how to get it to fully open up. It's really quite confusing.
After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to look up instructions online. I found the name of the couch design on a small sticker and Googled it. Turns out the design is from a company in New York. We found their website but no instructions. So we thoughts, "Ok, let's give them a call and ask for instructions." So with my Google phone, we called the store in SoHo and asked the lady if she could explain how to open the bed. I wonder how often she gets questions like that. :)
Thankfully, she explained it to us perfectly and, within minutes, we'd figured it out. I'm pretty sure she didn't know we had just called her from Berlin on my computer to ask her how to open our sofa bed. Gotta love technology.
Tomorrow morning, I am going to go pick up my friend, Joan, and then the three of us will go around Berlin to hopefully see some stuff we haven't seen before. I also need to translate a three-page article from English to German for my old roommate, Swen. He asked for my help with translating it, and I'm going to do my best. I think it would've been easier if I had to do it from German to English, but this will be good practice for me anyway.
Pictures will return again soon, I'm sure. :)
Sam
No comments:
Post a Comment