May Day in Berlin

It's now officially May Day in Berlin, which means only one thing—Berlin is about to go crazy. 2009 was the worst year in recent memory, when there were plenty of very violent riots. That's not to say that all May Day gatherings in Berlin turn violent, but it's certainly something the city worries about.

Tonight, my former roommate, Ronny, had his farewell party as he is moving away from Berlin very soon. He had his party at a friend's house in Kreuzberg, which is typically a center of the May Day demonstrations. So, naturally, I felt a bit apprehensive about heading out there late in the evening.

I needn't have worried though. Sure, I saw five police cars with armored police officers within the first ten minutes after leaving my house. But, hey, lots of police patrolling is good, right?

I decided to skip the normal stop to the apartment where the party was at, opting instead for the stop after (with the U-Bahn, I mean). The walking distance from either station was approximately the same, so it seemed better to avoid the one that is typically a center of lots of activity.

The party itself was quite fun. I had originally only planned on staying for an hour, but as is typical, I ended up staying for three. I chatted up a friend of Ronny's from Georgia (the country), and I spoke plenty of German all night. Even the guy who moved into my old room in Neukölln (now a friend of mine) said that my German had gotten even better since I last saw him. Excellent.

It took me a while to get home, but there were no problems at all. I did hear lots of fireworks, helicopters, and police cars, but it was all perfectly normal. I even went to my favorite schwarma shop at the busier U-Bahn station since I was hungry. So worth it—and for only 3€!

This morning started out perfectly. Lenz and I both slept in and woke up sometime after 11 AM. Then we decided to make brunch and eat it on our terrace. The sun was out, and there was a pleasant breeze blowing. Couldn't have been anymore perfect.

I made French toast (first time), and surprisingly, it turned out well. I love spring. The weather is so awesome, and having a terrace is just plain awesome.

I spent my afternoon relaxing at home and working on my research. Overall, just a great day, and I even continued my healthy eating. I had a nice salad with a homemade vinaigrette for dinner. Good stuff.

Finally, what a surprise, these Mariners just keep winning! Let's hope they keep it up. Happy May Day!

Sam

[Insert Blog Post Title Here]

I can't figure out for the life of me why I feel so weird today. I feel out of it, but not really. And that didn't even make any sense either, I'm sure. I couldn't even think of a blog title...

Last night, I tried staying up till 4:30 AM to watch Game 6 between my beloved Portland Trail Blazers and the Dallas Mavericks. I failed.

I made it till about 3 AM and then promptly fell asleep. By the time I woke up the final score was Mavericks 103 Blazers 96. Blahh. One could argue the Mavs just had more experience (they are one of the oldest teams in the NBA but they've also won at least 50 games in each of the last 10 seasons). But it just felt like the Mavs wanted it more, even with the two games that Portland won.

Anyway, the loss caused me to promptly change my Facebook profile picture to something other than my "Uprised" profile picture.

I got up around 12:30 PM (yes, I slept in really late today), and after a quick shower and lunch, I headed to the library 45 minutes away for the fourth day in a row. Two students I had been working with have been asking for help in preparation for their MSA (exams).

Now, when I first met up with them on Tuesday, I had anticipated just meeting up once. Well, each day they asked if I had time to meet again, and being too nice, I said sure. However, with Easter holidays ending now and still lots on my plate for my research project, I told them today would be the last time I could meet up.

We worked on math and English today. What I have realized in working on math with the students the past few days is that they really had no clue how to start solving the problem. I had to walk them through the wording of the problem (all in German), and even though I didn't understand every word (new vocab), I could still figure out what we were supposed to solve for.

After a few days of working on these, they didn't seem to be making any real progress. Frustrating, and yet another reason why I'm not really cut out for teaching: I am impatient. I expect that after two or three (differently worded) explanations of a problem you would understand the concept. I finally had some success with drawing pictures and diagrams. It was geometry after all.

I also realized they were completely dependent on their calculators. I asked them if they'd be able to use their calculators on the exam. Yes, they said. Well, great. They're still not understanding the concept behind their calculations. So I made an effort to try and clarify what the heck they were actually trying to do. Here's an example:

1/4 is greater than 1/3. True or false?


As soon as they saw the problem, they started punching numbers. Stop, I told them. Let's figure this out without calculators. They looked absolutely confused.

Apparently, they had never truly learned what the heck 1/4 or 1/3 even mean. When I asked them to convert 1/4 and 1/3 into percentages, they weren't sure how. Now, mind you, these students are in the 10th grade. Where they are in the education system is where an American high school student would be in the 12th grade—they're about to finish "high school."

The problem here is not an American or German thing though. It's a problem that includes student and teacher expectations, motivation, and support for the student (from home and from school). Could it be that everyone these students talked to have done them a disservice during tutoring and during school? This entire week, these students have spent their days (long after the three hours I came by each day) to study for their MSA exams.

I could go on about more observations I made, but I'll stop. We finished up math and then moved on to English. They had asked me to explain tenses as they were having trouble with it. I'm not sure my explanations (even with interactive online tools) really helped much. They were still confused as to when to use:

I am going versus I go
He is biking versus He bikes


In explaining all this (in German), I realized that having a strong grammatical background in your first language makes learning a new language that much easier. Throughout elementary school, I got drilled in English grammar, and the lessons simply stayed with me. It made learning German grammar a lot easier (although it's still tough).

The final exercises we worked on before they decided they'd had enough was with simple past and past perfect tenses. Even more frustrating for the students than the tenses themselves were the regular/irregular participles.

His heart was transplanted after he had already undergone several procedures.


I had to explain, using the German grammar I knew, how the difference in time, both in the past, mattered.

They asked me, "Why can't you say his heart was transplanted after he already underwent several procedures?" As I explained, how much time passes (even when talking in the past) matters. In German, the past perfect is called Plusquamperfekt, so they got a bit of a better understanding since the concept of time is the same. But they still struggled with when to use simple past and when to use past perfect plus all the irregular participles.

I finally made it home around 7 PM, after a long delay because of construction on the road. Until Monday, the tram in front of our house is out of commission, so I had to switch with another bus a few stops away. Terribly confusing, and I ended up waiting for 20 minutes before just hopping on another bus and walking.

Since it was already sort of late and I felt too lazy to cook, I picked up a Turkish pizza. I ate half of it waiting for the bus and then finished it off on my terrace. The view was absolutely great, and the wind felt really nice. All I was missing was a nice cold beer and some friends to hang out with.

And, of course, today was the royal wedding. London is only one hour behind Berlin, so I was able to catch some of the TV action after my shower this morning. I have a little British and UK flag (the Irish flag is in the back) in my room too from my trip to London two weeks ago. No, I did not wave it around.

Anyway, perhaps a mixture of my Blazers losing (ending their season), the Mariners seemingly on the upswing (a sweep of Detroit instilled in me a sense of false hope that may come crashing down this weekend in Boston), and the festivities of the royal wedding (even my roommate was watching it on TV in our living room) made for a somewhat bittersweet day.

And, of course, it could be that my experiences in working with more students have really made me rethink where my focus in education and policy really lies. There is so much work to be done, and it's all related.

Anyway, hard to believe it, but May's just around the corner. Till then.

Toodles,

Sam

Thunderstorms and Heavy Rain

Lightning just flashed again. I've been half-lazy, half-intrigued over the past hour that I have not yet closed my window blinds, even though the sky is dark blue. These flashes of white are really something, and I wish I could take a picture. I'm just not fast enough.

Quite unexpectedly (I suppose I should expect that when I don't ever check weather reports), the weather in the Berlin over the past 24 hours has turned into Seattle- or Portland-like weather. It's somewhat gray, windy, and most definitely rainy. 

Funny though, it didn't start out like that this morning. When I left around 10 AM, it was sunny and quite warm. I didn't even bother bringing my coat. Once I got home around 2:30 PM though, the weather really started to change. The sky got darker, the wind picked up, and soon, buckets of rain and hail were pelting my kitchen window (slanted windows, since we live on the top floor).

It was so loud I couldn't even hear my TV show properly even though my laptop's volume was cranked all the way up. Headphones helped. I took some pictures of tonight's weather though. It's been on and off again all day. In fact, it reminded me that that was my first impression of Berlin back in 2007—the weather would switch between sunny/pleasant and rainy/cloudy every 15 minutes.

Anyway, why am I writing so much about weather in this post? It's still Easter holidays, and so I don't have interviews till next week. I did do quite a bit of work today though, and I met up with a few students to help with their English as well. More English tutoring tomorrow as they have their exam coming up in a week.

In other news, here are my attempt-at-eating-healthy food pictures from this week:

Alright, got a meeting at the U.S. Embassy tomorrow. Gotta go do some more prep work.

Toodles!

Sam

P.S. It's still raining...

Grillin' for Easter

Happy Easter weekend! It's been a busy few days since I got back as I've had a few things to get done. I am working on an application for an internship that is due on Monday. Keeping my fingers crossed!

I asked my buddy, Brandon, if he could give me a haircut today, and he thankfully said yes. So we decided to turn it into a grill party as well. When I got to his place in the afternoon, we made a nice vegetable soup first. It was hearty, healthy, and delicious.

As I told Brandon and wrote in my blog post a few days ago, I'm working on eating better. In fact, when I bought groceries today, I left out all the normal frozen, processed crap that I usually get. I bought so many vegetables and fruits, I might've gone overboard on this whole healthy diet. :)

After our soup and my haircut, we went out to an Easter street fest near to Brandon's place. There was this one dude in a pink blazer singing like Elvis. It was pretty hilarious.

Along the way, we saw these kids in giant bubbles in water that made them look like hamster's running in circles. Even more hilarious than German Elvis.

Further down the street, we found a line of ponies. They were ordered from largest to smallest. The middle ones didn't seem to get much love.

On our way back, we stopped by a giant Asian store that we'd never seen before. It had everything! I need to go back there some time. Brandon found the durian. Nasty.

On our way out, he commented on the "pokemon eggs." Haha.

We saw a whole bunch of stuff on sale. Brandon really wanted a black cowboy hat, so he tried out a number of 'em.

After our fun little stroll through the street fest, we headed back to his place to do some grilling. I'd picked up some chicken wings and bratwursts, so we had some good food. Plus some veggie kebabs.

For dessert, I'd picked up a few cans of tropical fruits at the Asian store. I hadn't had any of them in months, so I kind of messed up when I bought grass jelly too. I forgot that my mom usually makes a nice, cool drink out of that. Otherwise, it's kinda nasty by itself.

So I used some of the syrup from the other fruits, some water, and ice and mixed it with the grass jelly. I'm not sure Brandon or Stefan (another friend who had come over) particularly liked it. Haha.

We ended our evening with some Easter egg dyeing action. Hilarious when the egg shells are kind of brown. They turned out alright though.

Now, I'm watching my Blazers play the Mavs in Game 4 of their series, and Brandon Roy just had a four-point play to tie the game at 82 with a minute left. They were down by 23 not long ago, and they've stormed all the way back. It'd be a shame to lose now. :)

Time to go watch the rest of the game,

Sam

Whale Meat and a Blog Posting Milestone

Well, this most recent vacation is now just about over. I'm at the airport in Oslo, Norway, waiting to fly back to Berlin in an hour or so. It's been a great week of traveling through London and Trondheim.

Here's a recap of my day yesterday and a few more pictures from Trondheim. I should also mention: this post is my 200th post ever on my blog. I only know that because my dashboard tells me that when I log in. So here it goes!

After sleeping in and waking up around 11 AM, Jess and I headed out to explore more of Trondheim. We took a bus up to the tower on the hill, which looks kind of like the TV Tower at Alexanderplatz in Berlin.

There was a restaurant/cafe at the top that had reasonably manageable prices, so we decided to have lunch there. Glad we did 'cause I was starving. The restaurant level actually spins, so we got a full 360 degree view of Trondheim. Nice, eh?

The menu had all kinds of food, so I decided to mix and match a bit. I had a quesadilla and a bowl of fish soup. The quesadilla was pretty tasty, and I'm so glad I could drench it in garlic and green Tabasco sauce.

After finishing all that food, we were pretty stuffed. The spinning level made me a bit dizzy, probably because I was facing the opposite direction, so it felt like we were moving backwards.

We went from the tower to fort, which was a short but steep stroll through a nice area of Trondheim. I imagine with views overlooking the fjord those houses must cost quite a bit.

The fort was pretty cool. Pretty empty too as no one else seemed to be up there.

Glad to know that their economic stimulus money is being put to good use though.

From the fort, we walked back into town and crossed the bridge of happiness again. This time, Jess convinced me to get a picture there. I used to like taking pictures in front of stuff, but I've found that the more I travel the less excited I get to do it. Haha.

Jess picked up a local candy bar (called Hobby, I think), and I took a bite. It's quite good. Marshmallows and banana covered in chocolate.

Later, after stopping by the house briefly, we met up with Fredrik and went grocery shopping. It was quite fun to learn about all the various Norwegian delicacies that you just don't see much in Seattle (or Berlin, for that matter). Here's a bunch of meats like reindeer and deer.

Dried cod, just like the Vikings used to eat back in the day.

Sheep. I can't explain how it was made to be like this, but Fredrik did tell me. I just remember it being interesting.

Norwegian brown cheese. There's brown cheese made from cow's milk and goat's milk. The one from cows is a bit more sweet, while the one from goat is a bit more tart. I tried some of the brown cheese made from goat's milk, and it's really quite good. Apparently, you eat it with Norwegian waffles.

Here's the only Starbucks you'll find in all of Norway. No Starbucks shops anywhere, although one is scheduled to open in 2014 in Oslo for a short trial period.

Canned reindeer meatballs. I would have liked to take a few of these home.

More reindeer. I like the label.

Tubes of caviar. You can take your pick: big tubes and small tubes.

After grocery shopping, we walked home and Jess and Fredrik made an amazing dinner. We had whale meat! You can see it on my plate next to the broccoli. We also had some potatoes (on the right). Delicious.

I was so spoiled at Jess and Fredrik's. They fed me such great food, and then they shared their Norwegian Easter eggs with me. You eat your cream-filled chocolate egg with a small spoon. Check out the directions on the left.

Jess decided it was epic enough to be documented, so here's me eating my chocolate egg.

Happy Easter!

After dinner, we watched a few shows. We saw the first episode of HBO's new series, Game of Thrones. It was pretty solid. Then we watched the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother, which was awesome. 

Then we watched a movie called The Black Book or something like that. It's about a Jewish woman living in Nazi-occupied Holland during the last year and a half of World War II. Most of the movie was in Dutch, but there were also long stretches of dialogue in German. It was quite a good movie. I think stories like that are important to tell in order to never forget the atrocities that happened in the 1930s and 40s.

It's been a long day of traveling already as I took a train from Trondheim to Oslo this morning that was delayed by almost an hour, making the total train ride nearly 7 hours long. After a three hour or so layover here in Oslo, I will be back in Berlin by 8 PM German time. Then I'll need to take the S-Bahn all the way back to Pankow, which will take at least 90 minutes. 

I have another week off from interviews as the schools are still on Easter holidays (two weeks off), but I have plenty to do as I have to transcribe all the interviews. I will also be tutoring one student as she preps for her English presentations next week. Other than that, I'll need to do some prep work for my next trip next month: Paris, France. :)

Toodles!

Sam