How have I changed this year
Well dear readers, it’s come to pass, I'm leaving today.
I will be leaving my Family, my Friends, my house, my school, my city,
my daily routine, and enter a foreign country:
The United States of America
This is not a joke. YFU has repeatedly mentioned that the exchange
year is actually two years (do I smell a bargain?), In that
Re-adjusting to your “home” country is often harder than adjusting to
your host country. Let me ratify that statement with a simplified
example: The Colored Glasses Analogy
Jack grew up in a country where everyone wears blue tinted glasses,
he’s never known anything else and everything was fine. THEN Jack goes
to a foreign country, where everyone wears red tinted glasses, he’s
never seen anything like this before and finds it strange, as he
adapts to life there he puts on a pair of red tinted glasses too,
everything is normal and fine. THEN Jack travels back to his home
country and suddenly everything is purple. He asks a friend “what
happened, why is everything purple?”, and the friend responds with
“what are you talking about? Everything is blue.”
Overview: Whereas the view of the host country is something new that
the student accepts as new and tries to adapt to, the home
country, a place that has always been familiar and comfortable,
suddenly changes in the way that you observe it. This could
be very jarring and depressing for the student because
your perspective of the world is permanently shifted.
We’ll just have to wait and see what it’s like. Will definitely be weird
What will I take with me?
Instead of giving you a check list of T-Shirts and toothpaste, let’s
think about things I’ve gained this year.
Speaking up, different opinions doesn’t mean you can’t be friends
I’ve experienced sexism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia here in
Germany. Yeah, I’m a white, heterosexual male, but that doesn’t mean I
tolerate that behavior, I want to stick up for my friends and family
members.
And yes these problems are just as prevalent in the US, but living in
a different culture for a year has definitely allowed me to notice
them more.
There is a difference between adapting to a culture, getting used to the different ways things are done/viewed in different cultures, and tolerating
hate. I would often be at odds between wanting to adapt to a new
culture (a personal goal for my exchange year), and not wanting to
accept instances of bigotry.
Please never feel like you have to pick between the two.
Maybe it just worked in Germany, but just plain up explaining how you feel to the perpetrator, giving them a glimpse of your context, and keeping it respectful has helped me diffuse the situation so that I let people know when they cross my lines, but remain viewed as a peer and not some 3rd party foreigner passing judgement.
I guess what I want to say is that I've become more confident in expressing my opinions, and sticking up for myself.
I mean, I had to represent the US in group discussions, I didn't want to make a generalization, so instead I would give my opinion, and then try to give people a general overview of the different sides of national issues in an objective way.
I did this A LOT, and people didn't judge me for it (which I had been afraid of before).
Thinking about everything complexly, nothing is an analogue, opinions are kinetic and not necessarily comparable with other opinions on a Left vs. Right spectrum.
I've become more outgoing:
Ok, I've heard from several German friends that, at the beginning of the year, people in my school wanted to talk to me and get to know me (I was the new exchange student), but they mostly weren't comfortable coming up to me and introducing themselves. I wanted to get to know these guys, so I bit down and approached lots of people everyday, asking tons and tons of questions. Yes it was very direct, yes it was forced sometimes, and yes I embarrassed myself, but eventually people got the drift that they could talk to me and that I wanted to be a real part of the student body. The rest was just fun, but the outgoing-ness stayed, and I hope it'll stick around longer.
I want to think about my first year in college like another exchange year. If I can just stay in the mindset I'm in now, my curiosity and extroverted-ness should be able to make it the best year of my life all over again.
Well I need to finish packing, I'm a bit sad, nervous, but for the most part delighted that this year went like it did. I wouldn't change it for anything. I know I'll come back, I know I'll stay connected to my friends and family here.
It's a tiny bit bittersweet. but...
WHATEVER, I'VE GOT TO GO CATCH MY PLANE!
Catch ya' later Deutschland. Ich werde dich vermissen.
-Jack McCarthy
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Speech
This is a bit of a read, there isn't any personal stuff in here, it's just me nerding out about languages. You probably have something better to do with your time. If you still want to read, why not listen to some music with it? (click link)
Speech:
the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture
Think about this weird thing that we do everyday. Humans are the only species able to do this. Let Hank rant about this to you if you want. As with anything we do daily, we take this incredibly complicated ability for granted. But without it, it is doubtful that Human civilizations would have been able to develop. Indeed our speech, and more broadly our ability to LEARN from one another and convey learned knowledge, is one of the most fundamental privileges of being Human.
If Men could only squeak they might as well be Mice.
Lets do a 180°
What if I said that Speech is actually holding you back?
In the fact that it is limited I mean.
How is it limited?
In how many people you can speak with. How many wonderful people you get to build relationships with.
You see, your speech lives inside of a "Discrete Combinatorial System", which is linguistics terminology for a Language. That means your speech is a system of blocks, words possessing a mutually understood "discrete" meaning.
It is combinatorial in that different orders and combinations (aka Grammar) of these blocks gives a certain relative meaning to the words. Different systems are mutually unintelligible, so you can only really communicate with someone who has a common language with you.
So you go from being able to do a high speed verbal data transfer like a Na'vi ponytail thing, to trying to get an mp3 to play on a Victrola Phonograph. They both produce music, they just need different file types.
Say you're an English speaker, according to the SIL Ethnologue's counts there are 335m L1 (native) speakers and 505m L2 (second language) speakers. L2 speakers being people proficient in the language.
335 + 505 = 840 million English speakers
840m / 7.167 billion (total people) = 11.72%
11.72%
_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited%5B1%5D.jpg)
Yes 840 million is more people than you could ever hope to interact with. But doesn't it seem restricting? If you were at stuck on an island with 100 people selected at random from all walks of life all over the world, wouldn't you think that it's weird that you could only speak to 11 other people?
But it feels like more people speak English than that:
Yes it does, let's think about that.
Who do you see that speaks English as a second language? (using a US perspective)
People from other countries who moved to the US: If you're living in a country were your target language is the official language, of course you'll be able to pick it up. But most people don't have the means to travel and learn English through immersion experiences.
Tourists from other countries: travel is expensive, thus most tourists will be somewhat well off, being well off is usually correlated with education, and with that foreign language education.
Politicians: yeah we hear foreign leaders speaking in English on the news all the time, but that is most likely because foreign language skills are an unofficial requirement for being a high ranking politician.
Lingua franca: Yeah, English is the language of globalization. I loved seeing how at my Internship at Fraunhofer a scientist from Spain and one from Germany did almost all their work in simple English although it's a second language for both.The scientist's knowledge of English enabled him to work full time in a good, long term position in Germany. English as a Lingua franca is a beautiful thing, and there are indeed people all over the world who speak English, but it's really only people who work directly in this international system.
So Politicians, international business people, tourism workers, pilots & captains, waiters at restaurants in touristy areas of cities. So if you travel somewhere as a really touristy tourist, or stay within internationally operating industries, you're fine with English most anywhere, everything outside of these circles is not assumed.
For example: My teachers in school, waiters at normal local restaurants, most adults that have been out of school for a while (use it or lose it), senior citizens (got their education before globalization really got going), policemen. The list goes on and on.
This is a big availability heuristic that wrongly convinces many Americans never to commit to learning a foreign language. Yeah there's foreign language education, but as I was going through it in American high school I got the sense that very few people were learning with the goal being able to talk to people from other countries, they were learning to pass a test and then they'd forget everything.
Isn't the goal of language learning to be able to communicate with more people?
If I haven't already convinced you that foreign language learning is super duper important, let me try a bit more:
Now let me tell you about the details of how I learned German, how I'm learning Mandarin. And how language learning can be fun, free, and easy. (resources/materials in the hyperlinks)
Recap of German learning: So I took German for 4 years in high school. We had a native speaker as a teacher, and he was a bit of a perfectionist, which can be good, but not if we're afraid of making mistakes. Because the real learning happens when you make mistakes. But on the upside we really learned the grammar structures inside and out. A lot of wrote memorization happened, which is not the most effective way to learn vocab, but it gave us a big base of words that we could recognize in conversation. Definite pluses were that the lessons were taught for the most part in German, and questions were mostly asked and answered in German. We got comfortable with the Grammar structures so that the only thing missing was a bit more vocabulary and confidence and practice. Watching kids TV in German once a week was fun, great listening practice, and we learned a lot about life in Germany.
All together it was effective while staying inside the structure of classroom learning (not the most effective style). And at that point I wouldn't have the base knowledge or motivation to learn on my own. Yes there are many varying learning styles, and you need to look around to find what works best for you, but learning in a classroom, with grades and tests, gives most people that initial jolt of motivation to build up their language framework.
45 minutes a day for 4 years of ~180 school days each = 540 hours
I'm counting hours to denounce Gladwell's intimidating 10,000 hour rule. TED talk about 20 hour rule
Then during the summer I watched German Children's TV and podcasts once a day. ~60 days x 1 hour. Cumulative Total 600 hours so far.
Here's the thing. I may not have been fluent from day one, but I was able to carry a completely normal conversation with the Germans who picked me up at the airport. My first week was full of other exchange students, so there was no need to be afraid of mistakes, and we talked and talked and talked the whole time about everything.
It was just a matter of putting myself in the situation and trusting myself. And NEVER reverting to English. If Germans tried to speak English with me (outside of English class) I'd just keep answering in German until they got the message. Yes of course I pronounced things weirdly and classmates giggled or didn't understand, if I didn't know vocabulary I'd ask, and I always encourage people to passively correct me (so just repeating what I say but correctly).
I'd say that after 4 weeks in Germany I was functionally fluent, speaking at a good clip, yes still plenty of mistakes and misunderstandings, but I could make friends and communicate my thoughts fairly sufficiently.
28 x 12 (Subtracting sleep, alone time and internet [mostly english]) = 336
FLUENT IN 1000 HOURS
Plus 38 more weeks (wooow I've been here a while) = 3192 more hours. Grand total as of today is 4192
I would say that the last 3000 hours have really just been a solidifying and internalizing of the skills, little things that aren't really necessary to be understood, pronunciation, specialized vocab, and internalization of grammar. The really important (and most efficient) learning was really done in the first 600 hours, the rest was icing on the cake. And just to clarify, I haven't been directly studying the language here, I've just been having conversations and reading like I normally would.
Let me try to give a good description of the extend of my German skill (and not toot my own horn at the same time):
-I think and dream in German for the most part (only thinking in English when thinking about US specific stuff). Thinking about everyday tasks and during conversations is purely in German.
-I read books in German, albeit a bit slowly and not with 100% understanding, but I got through Faust!
-I did a freaking physics internship in German! Highly complex terminology, at the end I wrote a detailed 25 page report in very formal scientific language about what I did everyday.
-I got a 2+ (B+) on a test in German! Better than quite a few Germans. Yeah the teacher didn't take points off for Grammar, but it shows that I'm able to understand texts and express complex points.
To further reassure people who don't think they can do it, I'll add that I wasn't the best in German. I struggled to be a B student in German throughout high school.
I don't have some magic skill for language learning, I just worked at it.
Also, natural ability would most likely help speed up the language acquisition process by only 20% or so, something that can be met by a bit more hard/smart work.
For people who say that they're too old, I say bullshit, maybe with age you're just more cautious and afraid to talk. Anyways, older people are generally less worried about judgement and being embarrassed, boosting confidence to speak, make mistakes and learn.
For people who say they don't have the time. I say just start RIGHT NOW. 10 minutes everyday, practicing in the shower, and listening to music or watching movies (with subtitles) in the target language for fun will take you very far. Stop delaying, don't say that you'll do it someday, start now. All you need is the will and the internet.
Speech:
the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture
Think about this weird thing that we do everyday. Humans are the only species able to do this. Let Hank rant about this to you if you want. As with anything we do daily, we take this incredibly complicated ability for granted. But without it, it is doubtful that Human civilizations would have been able to develop. Indeed our speech, and more broadly our ability to LEARN from one another and convey learned knowledge, is one of the most fundamental privileges of being Human.
If Men could only squeak they might as well be Mice.
Lets do a 180°
What if I said that Speech is actually holding you back?
In the fact that it is limited I mean.
How is it limited?
In how many people you can speak with. How many wonderful people you get to build relationships with.
You see, your speech lives inside of a "Discrete Combinatorial System", which is linguistics terminology for a Language. That means your speech is a system of blocks, words possessing a mutually understood "discrete" meaning.
It is combinatorial in that different orders and combinations (aka Grammar) of these blocks gives a certain relative meaning to the words. Different systems are mutually unintelligible, so you can only really communicate with someone who has a common language with you.
So you go from being able to do a high speed verbal data transfer like a Na'vi ponytail thing, to trying to get an mp3 to play on a Victrola Phonograph. They both produce music, they just need different file types.
Say you're an English speaker, according to the SIL Ethnologue's counts there are 335m L1 (native) speakers and 505m L2 (second language) speakers. L2 speakers being people proficient in the language.
335 + 505 = 840 million English speakers
840m / 7.167 billion (total people) = 11.72%
11.72%
Yes 840 million is more people than you could ever hope to interact with. But doesn't it seem restricting? If you were at stuck on an island with 100 people selected at random from all walks of life all over the world, wouldn't you think that it's weird that you could only speak to 11 other people?
But it feels like more people speak English than that:
Yes it does, let's think about that.
Who do you see that speaks English as a second language? (using a US perspective)
People from other countries who moved to the US: If you're living in a country were your target language is the official language, of course you'll be able to pick it up. But most people don't have the means to travel and learn English through immersion experiences.
Tourists from other countries: travel is expensive, thus most tourists will be somewhat well off, being well off is usually correlated with education, and with that foreign language education.
Politicians: yeah we hear foreign leaders speaking in English on the news all the time, but that is most likely because foreign language skills are an unofficial requirement for being a high ranking politician.
Lingua franca: Yeah, English is the language of globalization. I loved seeing how at my Internship at Fraunhofer a scientist from Spain and one from Germany did almost all their work in simple English although it's a second language for both.The scientist's knowledge of English enabled him to work full time in a good, long term position in Germany. English as a Lingua franca is a beautiful thing, and there are indeed people all over the world who speak English, but it's really only people who work directly in this international system.
So Politicians, international business people, tourism workers, pilots & captains, waiters at restaurants in touristy areas of cities. So if you travel somewhere as a really touristy tourist, or stay within internationally operating industries, you're fine with English most anywhere, everything outside of these circles is not assumed.
For example: My teachers in school, waiters at normal local restaurants, most adults that have been out of school for a while (use it or lose it), senior citizens (got their education before globalization really got going), policemen. The list goes on and on.
NOTE: There are other Lingua francas in specific geopolitical regions. My guest mom for example learned Russian in school in east Germany and not English. So English as a lingua franca is not as universal as it seems. Lingua francas also come and go.
This is a big availability heuristic that wrongly convinces many Americans never to commit to learning a foreign language. Yeah there's foreign language education, but as I was going through it in American high school I got the sense that very few people were learning with the goal being able to talk to people from other countries, they were learning to pass a test and then they'd forget everything.
Isn't the goal of language learning to be able to communicate with more people?
With my added knowledge in German I can now talk to 80 million more people than before. So 12.83% of the world population. And if I work hard at Mandarin I could get that up to 27.2% !
If I haven't already convinced you that foreign language learning is super duper important, let me try a bit more:
❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞
‒Nelson Mandela (I really take this quote to "heart", I've made many close friends here thanks to my German. If I had only spoken English with them I'm doubtful if that would've happened)
‒Nelson Mandela (I really take this quote to "heart", I've made many close friends here thanks to my German. If I had only spoken English with them I'm doubtful if that would've happened)
❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.❞
‒Frank Smith
‒Frank Smith
❝The limits of my language are the limits of my world.❞
‒Ludwig Wittgenstein
‒Ludwig Wittgenstein
❝Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.❞
‒Sarah Caldwell
‒Sarah Caldwell
❝Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.❞
‒Chinese Proverb
‒Chinese Proverb
❝You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.❞
‒Geoffrey Willans
‒Geoffrey Willans
❝To have another language is to possess a second soul.❞
‒Charlemagne
‒Charlemagne
❝Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.❞
‒Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
‒Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
❝Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.❞
‒Rita Mae Brown
‒Rita Mae Brown
❝Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.❞
‒Oliver Wendell Holmes
Language learning is also especially good at sharpening your brain: Let eHow tell you‒Oliver Wendell Holmes
Now let me tell you about the details of how I learned German, how I'm learning Mandarin. And how language learning can be fun, free, and easy. (resources/materials in the hyperlinks)
Recap of German learning: So I took German for 4 years in high school. We had a native speaker as a teacher, and he was a bit of a perfectionist, which can be good, but not if we're afraid of making mistakes. Because the real learning happens when you make mistakes. But on the upside we really learned the grammar structures inside and out. A lot of wrote memorization happened, which is not the most effective way to learn vocab, but it gave us a big base of words that we could recognize in conversation. Definite pluses were that the lessons were taught for the most part in German, and questions were mostly asked and answered in German. We got comfortable with the Grammar structures so that the only thing missing was a bit more vocabulary and confidence and practice. Watching kids TV in German once a week was fun, great listening practice, and we learned a lot about life in Germany.
All together it was effective while staying inside the structure of classroom learning (not the most effective style). And at that point I wouldn't have the base knowledge or motivation to learn on my own. Yes there are many varying learning styles, and you need to look around to find what works best for you, but learning in a classroom, with grades and tests, gives most people that initial jolt of motivation to build up their language framework.
45 minutes a day for 4 years of ~180 school days each = 540 hours
I'm counting hours to denounce Gladwell's intimidating 10,000 hour rule. TED talk about 20 hour rule
Then during the summer I watched German Children's TV and podcasts once a day. ~60 days x 1 hour. Cumulative Total 600 hours so far.
Here's the thing. I may not have been fluent from day one, but I was able to carry a completely normal conversation with the Germans who picked me up at the airport. My first week was full of other exchange students, so there was no need to be afraid of mistakes, and we talked and talked and talked the whole time about everything.
It was just a matter of putting myself in the situation and trusting myself. And NEVER reverting to English. If Germans tried to speak English with me (outside of English class) I'd just keep answering in German until they got the message. Yes of course I pronounced things weirdly and classmates giggled or didn't understand, if I didn't know vocabulary I'd ask, and I always encourage people to passively correct me (so just repeating what I say but correctly).
I'd say that after 4 weeks in Germany I was functionally fluent, speaking at a good clip, yes still plenty of mistakes and misunderstandings, but I could make friends and communicate my thoughts fairly sufficiently.
28 x 12 (Subtracting sleep, alone time and internet [mostly english]) = 336
FLUENT IN 1000 HOURS
Plus 38 more weeks (wooow I've been here a while) = 3192 more hours. Grand total as of today is 4192
I would say that the last 3000 hours have really just been a solidifying and internalizing of the skills, little things that aren't really necessary to be understood, pronunciation, specialized vocab, and internalization of grammar. The really important (and most efficient) learning was really done in the first 600 hours, the rest was icing on the cake. And just to clarify, I haven't been directly studying the language here, I've just been having conversations and reading like I normally would.
Let me try to give a good description of the extend of my German skill (and not toot my own horn at the same time):
-I think and dream in German for the most part (only thinking in English when thinking about US specific stuff). Thinking about everyday tasks and during conversations is purely in German.
-I read books in German, albeit a bit slowly and not with 100% understanding, but I got through Faust!
-I did a freaking physics internship in German! Highly complex terminology, at the end I wrote a detailed 25 page report in very formal scientific language about what I did everyday.
-I got a 2+ (B+) on a test in German! Better than quite a few Germans. Yeah the teacher didn't take points off for Grammar, but it shows that I'm able to understand texts and express complex points.
To further reassure people who don't think they can do it, I'll add that I wasn't the best in German. I struggled to be a B student in German throughout high school.
I don't have some magic skill for language learning, I just worked at it.
Also, natural ability would most likely help speed up the language acquisition process by only 20% or so, something that can be met by a bit more hard/smart work.
For people who say that they're too old, I say bullshit, maybe with age you're just more cautious and afraid to talk. Anyways, older people are generally less worried about judgement and being embarrassed, boosting confidence to speak, make mistakes and learn.
For people who say they don't have the time. I say just start RIGHT NOW. 10 minutes everyday, practicing in the shower, and listening to music or watching movies (with subtitles) in the target language for fun will take you very far. Stop delaying, don't say that you'll do it someday, start now. All you need is the will and the internet.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Pictures, Electron Beams, Antifas & Delegates
Well everybody, this is basically going to be photos and comments on them. I'll try to give you some context. And I'm writing this in parts when I have free time (currently about to leave for Berlin Mid-year Seminar in 5 minutes... so yeah).
To get this out of the way: I HAVE AN INTERNSHIP NOW!!!
I will be working at the Fraunhofer FEP Institute in Dresden for 4 weeks, aka Physics Research! (their PV research team didn't have any open spots).
I'm a little confused as to how I'm going to pull this off myself, but I'm excited!
I will be helping design a new experiment, wherein we use Electron Beams to reconstitute paper. I'll be setting up the apparatus and then running some experiments!
 |
| Militär Historisches Museum, visited with my awesome History class. It's really hard but I'm getting tons of historical perspective of Germany. This building (very architecture!) and the ones around it for e.x used to be Barracks for the Russian army in Dresden during the cold war, i.e where Putin was stationed! |
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I WENT ON STAGE BTW!!! The GJ did a spontaneous action against TTIP (which I actually support but whatever) before the delegates voted on the programm (which ended up support a redrafting). We went up on stage and played out the EU and US inviting their corporate friends (monsanto, google, Vattenfall etc.) to hang out and exclude the Delegates (b/c one concern is that these deals will be made without elected officials), there was much confetti, I obviously played the USA.. And then the "good guys" (Greenpeace, Deutsche Bund, The Greenparty, PETA, NWF etc.) came to defeat us and ensure that we weren't jeopardizing environmental policies. And then we all chanted "Stop TTIP" for a minute and that was that.
Although this action was obviously generalized, and I didn't agree with it. It was really really fun!
 |
| Courtyard swag at Messe Dresden where the convention was held |
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| Bravely went up to Jurgen Trittin (very tall) to ask him a question about EEG and Decentralization and get a picture. btw the guy in the crook of Jurg's neck was also with GJ and was superl chill. |
February 13th marks the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden near the end of WW2. It was a devastating event that still bears a scar on the city to this day. Those of you who have read Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" may be familiar.
It has become tradition to honor this memorial with a city organized "Menschenkette", a chain of people holding hands that goes all the way around the city center and lasts for ten minutes as bells ring. I somehow ended up with the group of people who organized the Menschenkette, so we got white vests and we walked around telling people where to line up. It was really fun and then suddenly very solemn as the bells rang all around us, standing there holding hands with strangers in the night.
Unfortunately in the last decade or so, radical nationalist conservatives and neonazis have attempted to use the memorial as an occasion to demonstrate against immigrants or whatever. Luckily in response there has been a massive citizen backlash from the group "Dresden Nazifrei" (free of nazis), which has reduced the number of extremist demonstrators to a tenth of what it started at, and this year there were absolutely no Nazi demonstrations on the 13th !(there was something on the 12th but most importantly it's not on the memorial day anymore)
Although, it turns out alot of self labeled Antifas (Anti-fascists, punks with a cause) were still out and about makin' a ruckus, and there were tons of riot police for safe measure, but it was maneagable. In the end it just turned into a dance party and I was with people from Grüne Jugend and it was just fun and exciting to get to be there and see everything unfold.
I visited a DDR museum with my guest family. Here you see a model of a classroom.
Notice the dear leader Walter Ulbricht keeping safe watch over the party's children.
Freie Deutsche Jugend. It was a state run scouting organisation that most DDR school
kids were a part of. "On the side of the Comrades", and then similar to the BSA "Always Prepared!"
 |
| Got Milk? |
The Swagtastic 4. A Honecker and Pieck sandwich with Marx and Engels bread. Yum.
What a lovely living room!
 |
| The Kölner Dom (aka Gothic Skyscraper)! I got to visit my guest relatives Claudi and Kaja in Nordrhein-Westphalen. It was awesome! The Cathedral still isn´t done btw, so naturally there are a few jokes about the world ending or the rapture happening upon it´s completion! |
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| Haha! The Kölner Dom is giving the Ludwig Museum bunny ears, those silly buildings! What is my life?! |
The week I was there was Karneval (same thing as mardi gras). It's a really big deal in the Ruhrgebiet. I saw some very questionable and some creative costumes. This is the set up for a big parade.
Westfalen Stadion. The home of the soccer team BVB Dortmund. The biggest stadium in Germany (80k, it was sold out that day!), and the site of Jack's very first live pro-soccer game. 3-0 gegen Nürnberg gewonnen!
And then we went to a TV tower in Dortmund, really cool view from up there!
Ok now I'm back in Dresden. I went to Ash Wednesday at the Hofkirche. I don't think I'd ever been to a Catholic mass before, and I'd never been to mass in german before either, but structurally it was the same as at home except a Bishop was there and they had the incense smokey thing on a chain that they swung. It was really hard to understand anything because of the acoustics and the more formal language. Overall, it was very spiritual and soul searching, as you would expect from sitting silently in a 300 year old Baroque Cathedral built by August II. (elector of Saxony and king of Poland), bombed to rubble during WWII and rebuilt in the DDR, sitting amidst throngs of humanity from all backgrounds in the secular and contemporary city of Dresden.
I got to have an unforgettable weekend in Meißen as part of a seminar organised by a friend of mine from Grüne Jugend (good job Clara!) for the German youth foundation. The theme was politics. We were hosted by the evangelical academy of Meißen in an extremely cool, 700 year old monastery. There were great workshops with politicians, and very perceptive discussions. I met some absolutely wonderful people too! My roommate Timm actually turned out to be a former YFU student!
We had a little party in the cellar on the last night, I got to play a few songs and they all liked it so much that they gave me a bottle of Meißner Wein! This year has definitely been great for my self confidence, and learning not to be afraid of judgement (I'll do a seperate post). I played a song I wrote for the first time in front of a crowd, and now I'm much more comfortable playing in front of people.
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| Watcha lookin' at Paula? |
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| Ludwig Richter's Haus! |
Monday, March 10, 2014
Time
In the past 2 months since writing I have been super busy, but instead of just listing off and describing everything I've been up too (I will do a seperate post) I thought I'd write about the exchange student experience and how It's affected me. Obviously these are just my perspectives but I hope they could be helpful to prospective Exchange Students, or just humanity (always a good option).
A division of an exchange student's time
At home and in High school I always felt overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to do, I would try to treat everything with the same level of importance. In the past I have not been good at prioritizing and very good at procrastinating. Which isn't very fun when you give everything a strong sense of commitment, so everything would get done but was often late and I was working very inefficiently. This year there's been a huge change, maybe just because I don't live at home anymore, but also because my exchange year has given me the chance to do a full reset.
This year I've been much busier and have been waaay more productive. Here's my scheduling and how I divide it up:
"Required" Time:
For me this is going to school and mandatory YFU gatherings, and for 4 weeks, my Internship (will describe below). which, are the things I'm officially here for. What's awesome/weird for me is that I don't need grades this year. I still do homework, but I am less of a perfectionist about it and I just sit down and crank it out. There's a certain comfort in knowing that the most important thing is is to just show up. For others this would be college classes and work. In high school I often stayed home from school because I hadn't finished the homework, which created a vicious cycle. I hope I maintain this attitude for College next year and don't turn into one of those students who ditches Lectures to work on a paper for the same class.
"Committed" Time:
This is stuff that I don't need to do, but do consistently anyway because I actively commit. For me here it's Choir, Theater, Grüne Jugend, The Greenpeace energy committee. I am absent from this stuff from time to time which is totally fine, and they're not fun every single time. These are things that I picked out myself and they have led to meeting sooo many people and got me into so many awesome events, these are also commitments which I have accumulated over time here.
Exchange Students: Don't worry if you have trouble finding a club or group for your particular interests, just keep your eyes and ears open and keep an open mind and don't be afraid to ask people if they know what kind of groups there are that do ____. Don't worry if it's not ideal. In terms of language, I can't even begin to describe how much specialized vocabulary I've learned from these groups (i.e Theater, Political, Environmental terms), and Grüne Jugend & Greenpeace are ideal atmospheres to improve speaking skills through discussions and debates.
To be clear, I got involved in the Grüne Jugend (green party, youth group) solely because of environmental stuff, but as I result I've learned an incredible amount about the political system in Germany in the process although I'm not interested in politics, but because I view it through the lens of Environmental Policy it becomes interesting through osmosis.
"Free" Time:
This could be further divided into alone and social activities, but for me they are pretty similar. This is often me hanging out with friends, writing my blog, going jogging, playing guitar, and my newest hobby: learning Chinese!
At first I had so much free time here that I didn't know what to do with it, as it got pushed aside by my Committed Time activities/events. During this year I've become someone who always equates interesting with fun, and when I'm not doing something productive I have a guilty voice in my head nagging me. So when I watch youtube it's Scishow and Ideachannel, when I'm playing a game online it's Memrise, and when I go jogging I listen to (and repeat) Pimsleur's Learn Mandarin. It may seem kinda intense, but I love it!
So that concludes my summary of how I spend/schedule my time on exchange, I hope I continue to do so back in the US because every day is a gift! I hope that the people who read this take the time to think about their own lives, and use their time so that there's never a dull moment.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Hallo 2014!
Hi there!
If you’re reading this that means you've survived either:
a.) Forcible entry at the hands of a surly bearded
man who proceeded to incentivize good behavior in children via the giving of
material goods
b.) Hanukkah. If you don't celebrate Christmas and option a still happened then contact your local authorities and don’t open the presents
c.) The barrage of fireworks that made german cities sound like warzones on new year’s eve. All forms of fireworks are legal in Germany, and people set them off in the streets. You’re Doin’ it right Germans.
d.) The polar vortex briefly shifting from the north pole down to the Midwest, I hope everyone’s staying warm! (here’s a great Hank Green video with his thoughts about its implications?)
b.) Hanukkah. If you don't celebrate Christmas and option a still happened then contact your local authorities and don’t open the presents
c.) The barrage of fireworks that made german cities sound like warzones on new year’s eve. All forms of fireworks are legal in Germany, and people set them off in the streets. You’re Doin’ it right Germans.
d.) The polar vortex briefly shifting from the north pole down to the Midwest, I hope everyone’s staying warm! (here’s a great Hank Green video with his thoughts about its implications?)
Either
way I hope that you've been having a great 2014 so far.
Here’s
what I've been up to since my last post
Hiked
up a “mountain”
So
the town where I go to school is in a valley (Freital = Free-valley), and there’s
a little mini-mountain overlooking it called the Windberg. So one day when I got out of school early I went and
walked up it. It wasn’t that hard but the view was nice, and there was a
memorial to King Albert of Saxony which was neat)
Jack’s
first protest political action!
It was with the Grüne Jugend who I’ve
mentioned before. Our goal was to get people to buy less stuff for Christmas.
We went through the Dresden Christmas Markets wishing everyone a merry Christmas
and giving out little pieces of paper with non-material gift Ideas on them. You guys
should stop giving material gifts too! It’s more personal and saves money, e.x. I gave
my guest parents a donation to Kiva, and my sisters a certificate for us to see improve together which I made myself
and am suuuper proud of (front, back)
We
also had super ironic slogans like: “The world in a shopping cart”, “Buy
yourselves happy”, and the one that I got “Konsum Geilheit” which translates to
either “Lecherous Consumption” or “Lust for consumption”! We even started
chanting “kauf” (buy) at one point! At first I was a little uncomfortable and embarrassed
but then I warmed up to it and it was a ton of fun. We made a lot of people
smile and started some dialogue, it wasn’t one of those angry complain-ey
protests but one that offered solutions and made them seem like a better idea
than the status quo. We did get some searing stares from shopkeepers though. It was
especially satisfying because I was the
one who originally suggested the general concept of the action in the first
place!
I’m
really glad that I started going and that I get to hang out with this great,
motivated group of people. Meine Igel!
And then I
had my 19th birthday! We
celebrated with an evening of Bowling and cards. I’m so lucky to have met all
these wonderful friends here and they really made it the best golden birthday
ever.
Weihnachten
(Christmas)! Celebrated on Christmas Eve, I got to meet the actual Santa Klaus,
although I didn’t realize that he spoke in such a strong Sächsische dialect! It was really neat how all the presents are
from Santa instead of just one per person, and how Santa actually came in and
personally handed us our presents from his bag, but only after making Hendrick
(Guest mom’s grandson, 6 y/o) sing a song and promise to be good next year
and not to interrupt people so much!
For
Silvester (newyears) I went with my guest mom’s Son, his wife and their kid
Hendrick to a resort in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. We met up with 2
of their friends and their 3 y/o Daughter. Pretty relaxing, and the fireworks
were spectacular.
BOOM!
Photo explosion:
 |
| We went to this massive Strawberry Farm experience store where they have every imaginable product that could be made with strawberries. There's was a restaurant, Ice skating rink, high ropes course, pottery painting activities, and this huge exhibit of bad-ass ice sculptures! |
 |
| That's Mario, technically my guest brother, certified bamf. After this photo was taken he would go on to be quite rude to that swan. |
 |
| Best binoculars ever at a nature museum. please don't punch me Wheezy Waiter it's not a real eagle. |
 |
| just us moms chillin while the kids play in a play maze thingy. |
 |
| And then I napped |
 |
| and napped some more, here's me napping in my nap dream: napception |
 |
| and then I was ever so rudely awoken! |
After we
got back from “Meck-Pomm” Miranda (YFU-er who I was in Frankfurt with) came to
visit me and I got to show her around Dresden. Then I realized that I know this
city just as well as Chicago, albeit Dresden is much smaller but still it’s 5
months vs. 18 years! I don’t know when I started feeling like a “resident”, but
I’m definitely one now. I recommend her blog (link here) for those interested in
another exchange student’s perspective (no 2 are alike!), she lives in Bayern
and they do things a little bit differently down there.
Now
I’m back in school again. Rehearsals for the play I’m in, “Die Räuber”, are
starting up and I joined the school choir! It made me realize how much I missed
singing every day and all of the wonderful students and teachers in singing
groups back at ETHS.
One
of my big projects in the coming months is going to be a Praktikum
(internship). German schools really emphasize those, they even give you 3 weeks
off of school to do one, and I think that’s great because you get hands on
experience and you can explore career paths. I’m in the process of applying
right now, so hopefully I’ll have good news by the next time I post!
Thanks
for reading!
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