A Few Side Notes...
1) Taught a very stimulating lesson on Will Ferrell, in which I emphasized the importance of his dramatic and comedic genius and had an enthralling discussion about Frank the Tank, Mr. Mugatu and SNL. Nonplussed as they were by Zoolander, Old School was apparently a big hit in these classes. (I didn't even bother with A Night At the Roxbury, which was a high school addiction that friends in the U.S., other than Ya, don't even get. Oh, and if you were asking yourself to what 'dramatic genius' I was referring? Winter Passing.)
Anyway, in the spirit of Christmas we watched the beginning of Elf, which Carolyn (fellow T.A.) had found in a five euro sale bin downtown. Needless to say, the lesson was a great success.
2) You know, as far as Austria goes, and I'm talking solely about Austria here, that predicted November/December slump they warned us about at orientation?...never happened. I would definitely say the beginning was the hardest part - leaving my beloved, safe, second-home, Charlottesville, - and it's been a slow and steady climb uphill from there. Nice. Thank god for the internet though and feel free to call me a Skype and Facebook junkie. No shame.
3) "You're messing with my mind, man."
Dad, you love to say this, and Mom, you love to laugh and groan when he does. I guess because you are refrencing the sixties and seventies I will never fully grasp all its connotations, though I realize from whom one would expect to hear this and in which situations. And it still makes me laugh! Either way, I often feel the desire to say this to the German language. I have the feeling this is inevitable when one is fully submerged in a country, culture, language, as I am.
Attaining fluency is a tricky business and one I definitely hope to master, someday. In the meantime, I use German whenever possible and savor the moments in which it is required (i.e. most recently with doctors and pharmacists, but always with bus drivers and store clerks and almost always with teachers and directors). The main problem when attempting language mastery: feeling dumb. No one likes to feel dumb. I know this, everyone knows this. Therefore, often conversations run somewhat like, well, this:
a) yada, yada...me German; them German; etc., etc; then me...moment of confusion; them English; me oh now I understand what you just said! sorry took me a minute...then me English, then me English again, and again, rephrasing the sentence maybe two or three times so as not to cause moment of confusion/feeling dumb for their sake.
b) me drifting off and generally being spacey (every now and then the Somers side of the family shines through), when all of a sudden I realize someone is addressing me in German and I had no idea and clamber to collect my thoughts and switch modes.
c) I forget what I was going to say here.
Basically (ha, this is ironic), I am finding myself taking much longer to relay my thoughts in English now. I question my spelling, word choice, my grammer and often stumble around before I finally, as my dad would say, 'spit it out.'
[I love German by the way, especially the Burgenland dialect.]
Anyway, in the spirit of Christmas we watched the beginning of Elf, which Carolyn (fellow T.A.) had found in a five euro sale bin downtown. Needless to say, the lesson was a great success.
2) You know, as far as Austria goes, and I'm talking solely about Austria here, that predicted November/December slump they warned us about at orientation?...never happened. I would definitely say the beginning was the hardest part - leaving my beloved, safe, second-home, Charlottesville, - and it's been a slow and steady climb uphill from there. Nice. Thank god for the internet though and feel free to call me a Skype and Facebook junkie. No shame.
3) "You're messing with my mind, man."
Dad, you love to say this, and Mom, you love to laugh and groan when he does. I guess because you are refrencing the sixties and seventies I will never fully grasp all its connotations, though I realize from whom one would expect to hear this and in which situations. And it still makes me laugh! Either way, I often feel the desire to say this to the German language. I have the feeling this is inevitable when one is fully submerged in a country, culture, language, as I am.
Attaining fluency is a tricky business and one I definitely hope to master, someday. In the meantime, I use German whenever possible and savor the moments in which it is required (i.e. most recently with doctors and pharmacists, but always with bus drivers and store clerks and almost always with teachers and directors). The main problem when attempting language mastery: feeling dumb. No one likes to feel dumb. I know this, everyone knows this. Therefore, often conversations run somewhat like, well, this:
a) yada, yada...me German; them German; etc., etc; then me...moment of confusion; them English; me oh now I understand what you just said! sorry took me a minute...then me English, then me English again, and again, rephrasing the sentence maybe two or three times so as not to cause moment of confusion/feeling dumb for their sake.
b) me drifting off and generally being spacey (every now and then the Somers side of the family shines through), when all of a sudden I realize someone is addressing me in German and I had no idea and clamber to collect my thoughts and switch modes.
c) I forget what I was going to say here.
Basically (ha, this is ironic), I am finding myself taking much longer to relay my thoughts in English now. I question my spelling, word choice, my grammer and often stumble around before I finally, as my dad would say, 'spit it out.'
[I love German by the way, especially the Burgenland dialect.]
posted by Anna K. at 10:21 AM
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