Gahaaa!

Cool stuff: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/highaltitudewindpower/

Busy times in Berlin. Yesterday I handed in fourteen pages of pure German text for my two literature courses. I wrote it all by myself :) - 1.5 spacing, which the Germans prefer. Makes me pretty happy, but I still have one more paper of about equal length to write by next Tuesday for my "German-American Relations" course. I'm doing research into the so-called "degenerate art" of the Nazi period, which for the most part was sold off to the United States, because the Nazis didn't want it. As a result, American museums have the most extensive collections of German expressionist and dada art from the early 20th century.

I turn in that paper next week, during final exams.

My Professor for Art History asked us to do an art project in lieu of writing a paper, which is a godsend for me! I'm experimenting with video in PureData, and I'm planning on doing some kind of interactive video and sound installation using a live feed from a webcam. It's coming along nicely, though I haven't quite decided on a concept. So far, I've just been playing with the technology.

We're going to have a little gallery party sometime next week, and then it's all over for IES courses here in Berlin.

But even after that, I'll be sticking with the internship at the Oberschule until school ends on the 15th. I am also working on a research project for that. For this, I've decided to interview some of the kids about their future prospects. You know, "what do you wanna be when you grow up?" "Do you think school is helping you achieve your goals?" etc. Once I've collected their comments, I have to do a little write-up and an in-class presentation of the results. Should be interesting.

Sylvia is flying in on 10th of July, while I'm wrapping up my internship. After the 17th, it'll all be over and we'll be able to go travelling around - I can't wait!

Wow, the time flew by quickly, and I kind of regret not blogging more often about it, but then that's how it goes. Goes to show how busy I was - more doing, less writing!

Part II of the Oberschule Saga

Okay, I owe you the rest of the story....

Well, after a while, the two girls had a pretty good idea of what they were doing. I still had to walk them through a few questions, but they were very productive even without my help.

But Patrick still could not focus. Either he was bothering the kids in the row in front of him, or they were twisted in their chairs talking to him. I wasn't really bothered by this, I'm not the strict teacher type. Occasionally I would turn to Patrick and the others and give them a mock-stern look and then point at their papers with a smile. They seemed to respect this for as long as their attention spans lasted.

Well, the crux of this story has lost its punch in the past week, but I'll tell it as I experienced it anyway. At one point, Patrick tried to ask one of the boys in front of him a question. He blew him off, saying, Shush! Halts Maul! Denk an Döner! - Shut up! Think about döner!

Now döner is a "Turkish Specialty," which as far as anyone can tell was invented in Germany. It´s essentially falafel meat wrapped in a pita and laden with salad. All the döner stands in Berlin are run by Turks. Initially, I was unsure about how to handle this situation because on the surface it appeared to be an incidence of racism (the kid actually said it twice). I also considered the possibility that these kids were friends, and that this statement may not have been malicious. Still, I didn´t want to take any chances and so I paid more attention to Patrick and kept him focused on his work.

As it turned out, Patrick and this other kid whose name, I learned, is Klaus, are actually good friends, so the situation was probably not as bad as it seemed. Still, it´s worth pointing out that racism and xenophobia are just as much a subject in Germany as it is in the United States.

Anyway, the school periods are just too short. The two girls hardly finished correcting their mistakes - I say mistakes, but they really left huge tracts of their test incomplete. They checked-out before the period ended and sat in the corner giggling, when I asked them to answer the last few questions.

My host sister told me about her math test yesterday in what appeared to be Pre-Calc. She told me that she probably "wrote a six," which is the equivalent of a big fat F. She said it was fun, though, because she had time to just sit there and daydream. "So you just gave up?" I asked. "Yes, of course," she said, "Math´s just not my subject...."

My conversation with Stella reminded me of the girls at the Oberschule and their attitude towards their English tests. It seems that if a student feels like a subject just "isn´t their area," then they won´t even try. They will simply accept the failing grade and concentrate on their strong subjects. I think that in the United States, the mentality is different. The focus is on the average, so one cannot afford to let a grade slip below a C.

That said, it is also easier to get good grades in the American school system due to the widely accepted phenomenon of "grade inflation." The differences in attitude can also probably be traced to the fundamental differences between school systems. But as this post is getting too long, I think this will need to be a discussion for another time and another post.

Ciao!

Some Observations from the Oberschule

Well, I'm feeling a little productive, so I decided to write another little post. A little more about my experience at the Oberschule:

In the third period on Monday I was helping out with a 7th grade class. Half of the class left within 15 minutes, because it was picture day for them. Curiously enough, it was not picture day for the other half of the class. They stayed in the room and I helped them correct their English tests. I was assigned to two girls and a Turkish boy named Patrick.

Patrick, whose name is not very Turkish, did not look very Turkish (except for his gelled-up fo-hawk), and he didn't have a Turkish accent. He, as well as the two very German girls, did not get a very good grades on their English Test - they were all deep in F territory.

Now, what is one supposed to do when confronted with such "poor students?" Well, the best they can, naturally. Patrick sat to the side, quietly confused, but rather unworried by his terrible grade. The two girls also didn't seem to mind, even though one of them had received a 29 out of 100. The assignment was for each of them to redo the second and third sections.

I watched as the girls copied the seven English sentences, in which they were supposed to find and correct errors. They were very concentrated and their handwriting was flawless. They finished copying the sentences within 10 minutes, but Patrick had hardly made any progress. He was distracted by the other boys in the classroom, I didn't really pay attention to what they were talking about. Occasionally, I would glance over at Patrick and direct him back to his paper, where he had written the numbers 1-10.

Looking closer, Patrick scratched out 8, 9, and 10, realizing that he only needed those up until seven. He started copying down the sentences. The girls, meanwhile, were using fountain pens with a special ink-eraser to correct their mistakes. I helped them correct the sentences. They hadn't even understood the assignment!

Okay, first translate the sentence into German. Alright, now go back to the dialog and find the related sentence.... Ok, I'll help you, this one here. Translate that into German.... Exactly, now you see what's wrong....

------------------

Well, I haven't mentioned yet that we spent this weekend in Warnemuende once again. Our train leaves shortly, so I will have to finish this post a little later.

Until then!
--William

Midterms, Internship

As the final exams fly by in the US (for most of you they are already done), I'm taking a little break from studying for my midterms, which are coming up this week.

This is interesting, because it means that I've hit the halfway point here. Maybe I'll write a little halfway-retrospective later.

This past week was the official start to my internship at the Kurt Tucholsky Oberschule in Pankow. Pankow is the northeast area of Berlin. The area is definitely very nice for old east Berlin, although I find the school building itself a little bit old and stuffy, perhaps underfunded.

I am interning primarily under Frau Isensee who teaches English at the school. The kids that I work with range from the 5th grade all the way up to the 12th Grade - a wide and interesting spread. I assist Frau Isensee in class, and she passes me off to other English courses as needed. The art teacher also wants me to help develop projects for kids in the seventh grade.

I began on Monday assisting Frau Isensee with the 12th Grade. The class was mainly a discussion about Media, and the students divided themselves based on two positions: (1) I can live without media and (2) I cannot live without Media. I, of course, fell into the "can't live without media" camp, so I joined the group and got to know them. Overall, the discussion went well and the kids were focused and friendly.

After that, Frau Isensee passed me off to a 5th grade class. The teacher didn't assign me a role, so I spent the period wandering around and looking over the kids shoulders as they worked on in-class assignments.

Then the teacher left the room.

Now, despite the fact that I felt a lot more useful directing the classroom myself, I have no formal educational training. So I was rather surprised that she trusted me enough to do this. She did not leave me completely hanging, either. The kids had work to do, and all I really had to do was help, discuss and supervise. The kids were also really well-behaved, probably because they were young enough to still be awed by my presence, and they respected me as an adult.

I'd like to think I did really well, considering it was my first time managing a class like this. Of course, I've spent years as a student observing teachers at work, so I've got a good grasp of the basics. I had a little more trouble on Friday when I returned to help with a 7th grade class and, once again, the teacher left the room (this time I was responsible for more than half of the class period and wrapping up).

Maybe it was TGIF syndrome, but most of the kids would not focus or even try the exercise, which asked that they practice going into a store and asking the salesperson to help them find an article of clothing. Maybe I set too high standards for myself, because it's not as if I lost complete control of the class and ended up crying in the corner.... No, it's just that four or five kids out of the 17 or so there were not at all interested in the lesson, and no matter what I tried, I could not seem to turn them on to the subject.

On the other hand, there were also five or six students who seemed very happy to have me there. They complimented me on my German and stayed to talk with me a little after class. That was very cool.

Some Images from Walpurgisnacht

Click on an image to visit my picasa album.
Enjoy!

Walpurgisnacht - Wal-Mart-Begone-Night

I know you're thinking, "What does William do all the live-long day, and has he turned German yet?"

Let's talk about recent developments.

May 1st is a take-a-day-off-work-and-school kind of holiday here in Germany. We've been having an awful lot of those, and that's just peachy-keen, despite my indiscriminate use of the word "awful" earlier in this sentence. The next day off is in just two weeks. Wowza!

Well, what did we do May First? Of course, we hit up the party down by Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzburg. This is an area known locally as "Little Istanbul" because of all the Turks who live there. They even have a bi-weekly market, which is crowded and full of fish smells. Sheebang!

The party was bumping. There were at least four stages (that I counted, but who wants to count at a party?) with live music, and the streets were almost as packed as DC after Obama's Inauguration (hereafter: The Inauguration), which means shoulder-to-shoulder peopletraffic. Sorry, I'm getting used to being able to mash words together.

The party was called MyFest because "May" in German is spelled "Mai" and pronounced "My." Yes, the Germans love puns almost as much as they love English. Put the two together and apparently you have three blocks worth of people partying likes its 2009. We watched some rapping Turks, we laid out in a park next to a Techno DJ, and we paid too much for Beck's (but still less than bar prices. Berlin must maintain it's status as most affordable major city in the world).

But let's get to the crux of the story. May 1st is also the day when the anti-capitalists turn out en masse to show their general dissatisfaction with The System. They march around for a while and then at dusk they put on their masks and descend on Kottbusser Tor (an over-ground/under-ground subway stop as well as a major intersection), setting expensive cars and banks aflame, resisting law enforcement, and generally being a nuisance. It's black-bandanna student-revolting chaos.

Now before my mother has a heart attack reading this, I'll go ahead and say that I was long gone by the time these festivities began. This is partially because of the heads-up I got from the local media and wise Berliners alike. The area was also crawling with coppers, ambuli (my new plural for ambulance), and apparently fire trucks, though I didn't see any. Mainly, I saw police van after van after van and a bunch of dashing young officers in uniform going to and fro, their bellies dancing merrily in their bulging waistcoats.

Ay yai! More to come...

It's not what it looks like!

Well, here's an image before my internet runs out. I did a double-take when I saw it, and then I saw the little advertisement below for The Producers. 

Travel Update #3! Arrived in Berlin

Well, here I am in Berlin two weeks before the IES Program officially begins with nothing much to do! I'm sitting in the Mitte's Backpacker Youth Hostel hammering out this entry before I pay to connect to the internet and post it. Everything I write here is the truth and happened, unless I say it isn't and didn't in which case you should believe the latter, okay? Why would I pay 3 Euros an hour to lie to you?

I arrived two days ago (truth!) and did a little exploring of the Mitte (Middle) area of Berlin, which is just up the street from here. Pictures and video will come soon! I did not see any Nazis (truth!), but I did see some Nazi-esque banners with silhouettes of Pretzels on them. I once heard the swastika is illegal here; I wonder if that's true? For the curious among you, the banners were an advertisement for a performance of The Producers. 

I ventured a little farther afield on the tourist track yesterday. I figure I've got to see these things at least once! First it was Brandenburg Gate and then the Bundestag, which has been the seat of the German government since 1999. I mention the date because I just learned it today, and I was struck by how recently it occurred. Then again, it is only (almost) the 20th anniversary of Germany's reunification (truth!), and Germany was separated for over thirty years. Perspective!

On that topic, Germans, Berliners especially, are still very conscious of reunification. Every map of Berlin I have seen, for instance, including the English one I bought at home, has a red line indicating the former location of the Berlin Wall. From this I know my hostel is in what was once East Berlin, and so is the so-called Mitte.

Berlin is a sprawl. There are multiple city centers connected by an excellent mass-transportation system. The Mitte is one of these, and Potsdamer Platz is another. That's where I ended up after gawking at the Rathaus for a while. I wandered through the Tiergarten, Berlin's enormous central park, which was very beautiful even in the desolation of winter. I have pictures, so I'll spare you the poetry. :)

Guided by an enormous, spinning Mercedes Star atop a distant skyscraper (imagery!), I reached the Sony Center, which occupies its own block cornering the Potsdamer Platz. It is a really interesting structure that forms a high courtyard topped with a twisted tarp-like thing. My guidebook told me that I could get free Wifi there, but no dice (found the network, but wouldn't connect).

After considering a nearby memorial to the Berlin Wall, I wandered into the train station and discovered that it was connected to an underground shopping mall. H&M had two outlets, one was entirely women's underwear (fal- nope, sadly true). I fairly lol'd at that, to use the parlance of our times. I also laughed out loud when I saw a "Bob der Baumeister" (Bob the Builder) poster, too. Forgive me, but I think 'Baumeister' is a really funny word.

After wandering around the mall for a while, I paid 5 Euros to pee (false! I only paid 10 cents). No, it wasn't mandatory, but everyone else what putting change on the plate. And when everyone else is putting change on the plate, what can one do?

Well, that's it! Thanks for reading the first dispatch from Berlin. You'll hear from me again soon.

Hey, also drop me a comment! Was this post too long? Too short? To detailed? Too vague? Less talk, and more pictures of cute animals? Anything! What do you want to hear about? This blog may be all about me, but I'm writing it for you!