A Minnesota Yankee in Duke Ludwig's Court

The internet sitch is getting better, and photos may be available sometime this week.

First off, I'd definately like to thank everyone involved in this effort with Ms. Uppgaard. She was a very special person, and as a teacher she inspired creativity and achievement in everyone. It would be impossible for me to think of anyone that didn't like her, and even moreso to find any child whom she did not nourish and educate at a level far beyond the standard for teachers today.

Tuesday: School as not so usual. Today was the first day I was supposed to switch to my new schedule, but two of the three classes were cancelled, so I only went to Mathe 12 and stayed with Geli's class the rest of the time. Coming back, some of them wondered where I'd been.
"Mathe 12."
"Und?"
Shrug. "Kein Problem."
Their eyes sort of bulged. Truthfully, though, it really was no problem. They're doing Calc, and as we are now six weeks out from the end of school, they're covering the stuff we were doing six weeks before the AP tests. It's good review for me, if nothing else. When I told the family that I'd already covered the material, Manfred proposed to send me off to college.
After school Geli, Manfred and I went to the courts, and us latter two played a set. Manfred won 6-2. I dropped my standard sit-back-and-wait-for-opponent's-mistakes strategy because I figured it wouldn't work on Manfred, as he's not the average 110% power slugger teenage player. Rather, he was stable and consistent in the corners, whereas my serve was off and I couldn't stop him once he got me running. On a better day, I might've made it close.

Mittwoch: Manfred gave me a 5th grade level writing workbook to help me out. Unfortunately, its focused more on handwriting and less on knowing what the words mean, so it doesn't help me much. Also, we had a dreaded two-hour block of German this morning. We got our tests on Jugend Ohne Gott back, and I got an equivalent B-, which wasn't bad compared to many other students. About half my wrong answers came from translation problems, and the other half because the test was tricky. One question asked if a character was a Waisenkind. I didn't know what that was, and it was never explicitly in the book. Waisenkind means, as I later found out, orphan, and I had indeed known the girl was an orphan, just not Waisenkind. A lot of other students were quite angry about the trickier questions, as the teacher had said the test would just be one to make sure one had read the book. That afternoon we had two hours of Biologie. Before meeting the teacher, Geli had told me he looked like Jesus, and it's quite true. Also, he's a new father, and was therefore quite tired. Furthermore, he was trying to teach us meiosis. The first twenty minutes of class, we basically got nothing done. However, he was able to explain it well enough. I really like him as a teacher; he's pretty laid back and good at what he does. Also, he gave us ice cream. After class we went shopping. I bought Manfred a copy of Apollo 13 since it's his birthday tomorrow.

Donnerstag: I propose an American adaptation of a German birthday tradition: breakfast this morning was raspberry cheesecake and strawberry angel food cake. Also good was the day. Congregating with the Amis at the train station, we headed out for Tübingen, a smaller college town, also on the Neckar (the river running through Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart), but at a point where it's shallow enough for transportation via gondolas with punts, as in Venice. We toured the city, ate at the University Mensa (cafeteria) and took a ride on one of the boats. I got a lot of pictures and had a bunch of fun. While at the Mensa, I noticed a large display of books selling for a Euro apiece, so I bought two; one is a collection of Goethe's poems, the other a Marxistic introduction to German history. Quite interesting and quite difficult. Earlier that day, I had chatted with the German teacher from St. Charles, mostly about our German curriculum and school and whatnot. Later on, some of the Amis told me that she had been telling their group that they were much better at German than I because they read literature in their classes, and about how much better a teacher she was than whomever I had. They also consistently tagged on the fact that none of them were nearly as good at German as I was, as they could hardly say anything after 3 years, much less understand and converse like I could. The moral of this story is that somebody should tell Mr. Pritschett about this next time they see him. That evening, we went out to a chinese buffet restaurant. The buffet was sort of small but fairly elegant, and there was also a section of raw meats, seafood, and vegetables that one could select from and have a chef prepare.

Freitag: We recieved our standardized math tests back, and I scored a 1,5. That translates roughly to an A- B+, which was fine by me since it was basically an FST final (minus Trig) auf Deutsch and without a calculator. I mean that I didn't have a calculator, whereas most others did. That's one device I wish I had brought with me. In Physik, I found that the 11th graders were a bit ahead of us in Mechanics and whatnot, but that it shouldn't take me too long to catch up. Geschichte was cancelled, and instead we went to Musik, where the teacher split us up into groups to choreograph different parts for the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story. It was... interesting. I've not much more to say about it. Finally, Englisch, an ideal class to end out the week with.
Coming home, I started on "German History From The Beginning To The Present, A Marxistic Introduction." When it says "the beginning," it really means it; the first thirty pages or so are about neanderthals. I soon fell asleep and napped for maybe two hours. Soon after waking, Geli, her friend Larissa (called Lala), Lala's two Amis, and I went down to the field area I went to on my first Saturday here. It across the river from a bunch of vineyards and is set up for camping and recreation, and its quite beautiful. It was Lala's 16th birthday, so we were throwing a party. We set up there, Lala's mom brought some pretzels and beer, and around 8ish people started showing up. By 10:00, there were maybe 100 if not more. I hooked up with a bunch of the exchange students from St. Charles, although I did chat with others as well. Wherever I went (not just that night but my whole stay), I was complemented on my German. One last night even went so far as to tell me that his picture of Americans had bettered just by talking with me and hearing my German. In another case, the Amis got bored, and started offering free hugs to anyone who walked by. The very first guy they got became extremely interested in our group and practiced his English on varied subjects from basketball to the party we were at. He was quite funny to talk with, but he definately knew his NBA. I'm sure there are a lot of other small tales that will pop into my mind from time to time, but they're really too numerous to recount here. We left the party around 12:30, seeing as Geli had to play tennis at 9:00 the next morning.

Samstag: Slept in. Called my family. And now, checked and updated the blog, also checking other blogs and emails. Its a process that takes quite awhile when one only does it once a week...

Comments from the peanut gallery:
In fact, the girl I quizzed is one of Larissa's Amis. Also, while sitting next to her, a German came by and asked about her. I told him, in German, that she was drunk, and she retorted, "No I'm not, I can understand you." So... if she was coherent enough to understand German at that point, she must not have been totally intoxicated.
Anonymous: wow... I might be the only one who doesn't know who you are.
Noah Wheeler?
I'm truly stumped...
As far as iRiver vs iPod goes, Josh is probably right that I'm not an expert in this field, and indeed I got my recommendation from Sean Switajewski. From what I know, the iPod runs a bit smoother and is more streamlined with its music-playing capabilites, but the iRiver also has a microphone, radio, and pic and text abilites that the iPod doesn't, as well as more mem for a lower price.

Side Note: Germans essentially eat 5 meals a day, once one breaks it down. Theres breakfast, usually slightly smaller than American breakfast. During the large break at school, I eat a sandwich. Around 1:30, earlier if one is home earlier, is lunch, the biggest meal of the day. Oftentimes, this comes with a dessert, usually ice cream, which is much better here than in the USA. I'm counting it as the fourth meal because it can sometimes come a couple hours after lunch. Lastly comes supper, usually late and small, often just a couple open end sandwiches of rolls and meat and cheese.