What my journal tells me...

As I successfully headed of an analysis of the evolution of my journal in my last post, I thought I would use a new post to delve a little deeper into how my journal works. I was taking a closer look at my earlier entries to figure out exactly what I was going to post and it occurred to me how accurately my journal reflects the progression of my exchange year. I'm not sure how well I can explain it but I'm going to try.

First off: When I arrived in Germany, I started off writing in as much German as I possibly could (although that was not really that much and it took a LOT longer than just writing in English). Actually, the entries were mostly English with new words and phrases I had learned thrown in for practice. I also attempted to number the days when I wrote, a habit I gave up on after an impressive seven days. I'd say the language thing shows how genuinely motivated new exchange students are to learn the language, integrate, and have a successful year even when they feel unprepared and a little bit lost. Going along with the feeling of being lost, the numbered days and the fact that my first entries were detailed accounts of pretty much every minute of everyday shows that I was trying to find order and normality in my new situation and I was holding to the YFU Exchange Student Handbook (this doesn't really exist) that advises exchange students to take the year one day at a time. You can also tell how much free time I had because of the amount I wrote. These entries also took the form of a monologue. I used the journal to write things out and organize my thoughts, trying to get my head around everything that I was experiencing in the beginning of the year.

Slowly, slowly, the German disappears and my entries become shorter collections of sentence fragments that really wouldn't be decipherable for anyone except for myself. This is a time where every moment of exchange wasn't the amazingly exciting. I wrote so I would be able to remember everything but the time I was spending on the composition of journal entries was minimal. I still had the will to write and record what I was doing but I no longer was motivated enough to figure out everything in German. The fact that I stopped writing in a monologue-style and switched to just listing events and actions shows that I was finding my way better than before. I was learning new things all the time but my brain was no longer overloaded from the whole exchange experience.

Then, a funny thing happened; German started working its way back into my writing but not because I was newly inspired to translate everything. My brain simply started to work in a language somewhere between English and German. Writing really brought out the best of my Denglish. When you think, you don't have to commit to one language because, obviously, your thoughts are just for you and your brain just thinks in whatever language comes easiest. I also didn't have to make a choice when speaking in my daily life because it was clearly assumed that I would be speaking German. However, while writing a text that is only for me, I did have a choose if I was going to write down the thoughts in my head in German or in English. It's funny to read the entries from this transition time for me because the couple of weeks that I was really struggling to choose one language per day seem obvious to me. I wanted to keep the two languages separate because that's how I thought it should work but my brain didn't agree. Eventually, I just embraced the Denglish and writing became easy again.

This was the part of my exchange where my life in Germany was no longer just my exchange life, but actually becoming a part of me. The flight here and adjustment time were no longer so fresh in my mind and my activities, responsibilities, and problems here were starting to push thoughts of Uni, basketball season, and college to the back of my mind. Just like with my writing, I had to figure out that going with the flow was the best strategy to successfully get through this phase and that the balance between my two lives would continue to change and eventually (hopefully) balance itself out.

And lo and behold, it did. As I learned more German and got better at using it, it was easy and totally natural to just sit down and write in German. Not only is it good practice, but it's also how my memories exist in my mind; they're my Germany memories in German. So actually, my journal hasn't just helped to preserve my memories of what I've done this year but I've also somewhat accidentally recorded my language progression and how exactly how I merged my two worlds. My journal is now almost entirely in German, just like my life. :)

I'm Back to Blogging!

Hey, there! Seeing as the my last post on this blog was entitled, "Herbstferien Adventures" and never even made it past the draft-phase, I feel like this post should start off with a brief explanation for my absence. There are two main factors that caused the blog post shortage, the first being a problem with content and the second being language struggles. However, since I am now well over halfway done with my time in Germany, I am going to attempt to combat these two problems in the next months and continue to post here for the remainder of my exchange year.

Now, when I say I ran into a "content problem" shortly after the end of Fall Break, I don't mean that at that point I stopped doing things with my life and therefore had absolutely nothing to write about. Actually, I wrote quite a lot in the late fall but the subjects of my writing weren't really what I was looking to post and share with others. At the point at which I stopped writing on my blog, I had already been living in Norderstedt a couple months and was successfully settling into and Alltag routine. I was still meeting tons of new people all the time and struggling to understand the German that surrounded me, but I had a schedule and I had a routine. At this point in my exchange, my writing fell into three general genres:

1) GERMAN PRACTICE- In terms of content, this "genre" is very, very broad. Pretty much the only commonality that ties these pieces together is that they are in German. The motivation behind this category was simply to be thinking/practicing/producing more German. So when I had a free moment, I'd sit down and write SOMETHING in Germans, a vignette, a story, a journal entry, basically anything that came into my mind. It was a good way to express myself in German and see what I had the vocabulary to say and what vocab I lacked in a low pressure situation where I could look up the words I needed. I thought that these would be fun to go back and read later in the year to see how my German improved... Turns out, they actually just make me cringe more than anything else at the weird topics I chose and my horrible grammar. I'm hoping with time I will find them more endearing...

2) OBLIGATORY JOURNAL ENTRIES- I successfully have a journal entry for everyday of my exchange year. The quality and detail varies immensely, as sometimes I'm very motivated to record my life and sometimes there are things I would just rather forget... My journal started out in my broken German waaaayyy back in August when I, being the good, motivated exchange student that I was, wanted to use every possible second to practice and improve my German. In the beginning, I even noted some new words I'd learn everyday and my Happy/Crappy (Camp T <3). Then after a while, this became tedious and I switched to English so I could quickly scribble out an outline of my day and go to bed quickly. But what is really interesting is that at some point, I started writing my journal entries in "Denglish" simply because that's how my brain was working. (I feel like I need a separate blog post for this analysis...) Now, I write almost exclusively in German with a day here and there in Spanish.

3) EXCHANGEY THINGS- This is not an interesting genre. Exchangey things were notes I took at seminars, questions I needed to ask my Betreuerin, or lists of things to do. I also still have some plans for blog posts I never wrote... Goal: keep some order in my life.

 So clearly, there was writing happening... just not here. I also didn't really want to post that much daily life stuff or chilling with friends because I find that content better suited for a journal than the internet. Yes, I could/should have posted some stuff about the cool big events in my life here (trip to Amsterdam/Vienna/Bremen/Luebeck/Munich, 50th Anniversary of my hostfamily's family business, birthdays, concerts etc.), but at this point the second problem comes into play.

If you have never completely immersed yourself in another language for an extended period of time, you cannot understand what happens to your brain. I first found blog writing becoming a chore as I noticed how the amount of English that I used in a day, severely affected my German. I really wanted to learn as much and as fast as I could so I thought a break from blogging would help. I considered starting to write in German but quickly decided that to be a terrible idea as 1) my German was NOT sufficient to write entertainingly, 2) everyone who reads this can speak English but you can't all necessarily speak German, and 3) I was/am not ready to post my mistake-filled German for people to read. Then, as I became more comfortable with the language and decided to revisit my blog, I found myself struggling to write in English. I know. It sounds silly to say that you can "unlearn" your first language but you definitely can. This doesn't mean I was perfectly fluent in German. This just means that as I was writing, I wouldn't be able to think of the words I needed in English, but rather in German or I'd write a sentence with English words but use German sentence structure. (Again. Separate blog post needed.) I had a very hard time finding a coherent voice when writing in English and found the experience of just being mediocre in two languages very stressful. I abandoned my blog again out of frustration.

The fact that I've returned to my blog does not mean that this problem has disappeared, on the contrary actually, but it does mean that I'm slowly realizing that in three very, very, very short months I will be going back to the US and then in ~4-5 months starting at college and at some point I have to articulate myself in another language again. I've also realized what a different perspective I have now on the year being almost through rather than right at the beginning and that I actually have things I do want to say now while I have this world fresh on the brain. So hopefully, I can keep up with this and successfully work posting into my schedule so that I can share my last months of this crazy year and reflect a bit.

Winnetou Pictures

 The Stage:

 The narrator arrives in town:

These are the bad guys. The smoke is from the gun fight that just occurred and the other picture is them fleeing the scene:

Left: The good Indians dancing and singing and stuff.

Below: The Opache chief on his horse.

 Right: Charlie Shatterhand defending himself against more bad guys.

Below: Yay here come the English guy!

Him explaining his purpose in the Wild West to the old prospector guy. Of course his trusty butler stands back and listens attentively.

 The rest of his staff-------->

 Bad guys and Old Shatterhand's truelove.

 Winnetou leaping from his horse to come to his sister's rescue

 Fighting again!

 Keep your eye on the bad guy running in....

 Keep watching!

hm... that didn't go very well for him....














Winnetou continues to defeat his attackers------------------->

Below: Englishman singing typical American hoedown songs with the dancing girl

 'Murica!

Falling in love!!!!

 Intense fight between Winnetou and Charlie

After an intense battle, Winnetou pins Charlie with a spear at his throat. Unfortunately at the performance I was at, the spear point broke so instead of looking menacing, it just dangled over Charlie's head, causing all the actors to laugh and some other actor traded spears with Winnetou for the remainder of the show.

/\ Yay! Charlie and Winnetou and now blood brothers and the bad guy is tied to that pole /\

\/ All of the Englanders, cleverly disguised as trees. The butler follows the troop with, of course, a dynamite candle!  \/

 

 

BIG FINISH! FIRE!

The Wild West is everywhere!

(This experience actually happened at the end of my second week here; however, I write about it now because it's still cool.)
My family had prefaced the play we were going to on Saturday night by telling me that we were going to a Western. Of course, I immediately thought of Westerns as they exist in the US: cowboys and Indians, shooting and horseback riding --The Wild Old West, immortalized in film and the creation of a genre dedicated to its portrayal. But then I was like, wait a second. I'm in Germany. Why would they ever show American Westerns? That'd be silly. So I resigned myself to being surprised at what a German Western could be when we arrived at the theatre. I also knew the stage was outdoors so I prayed for nice weather.

Luckily, the weather was gorgeous as I walked with my host father from the car in the grass parking lot and followed the crowds of people to wherever we were going. As I looked around, I noted some extremely oddly dressed individuals. There were a lot of moccasins, suede accessories, and feathers head pieces bobbing about in the hoard heading into town. This was only a taste of what was to come. Soon enough, we had entered a Wild West Village, complete with a trading post, feed stand, teepee, and other cowboy themed merchandising opportunities. The icing on the cake (or so I thought at the time) was the swarms of Germans and other tourists of sort parading around in Wild West gear, eagerly awaiting that evening's show.

Before I get into my experience of the main attraction, perhaps I should actually elucidate where I actually was and what exactly I was going to see. I was at the 2013 Karl-May-Spiele's production of Winnetou I-Blutsbruder in Bad Segeberg. Who is Karl May? Karl May was a prolific German author that wrote Westerns and is specifically known for the Winnetou-tetralogy. He is so well known that every year in Bad Segeberg, the Karl-May-Spiele produces one of his works in play-form. The Winnetou books portray the story of Winnetou and the Apache Indians as he battles the all the evil the world can throw at him. The stories are recorded by a journalist from the east coast that just recently moved west, Charlie Shatterhand. He and Winnetou become blood brothers and Shatterhand inevitably falls in love with Winnetou's beautiful sister (doesn't go well).

Anyways, after grabbing a bite at the restaurant next to the Trading Post, my hostfather and I met with the rest of the family and family friends and starting making our way to our seats. I'm not exactly sure what I was picturing before I entered the theatre (theatre is hardly the right word) but I was entirely shocked by the mini-town that made up the stage. Here, I'll just add a picture.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the trails where the horses ran through the different levels of the audience but just know it was cool.

And it was full.

I'll add some more pictures in another post but now, on with my story. I'm not going to go step by step through the plot because that's lame but I am going to hit the most intriguing point: watching the Wild West in German. Because really, what is the Wild West without the associated slang?

The production team conquers the lingual barrier with a liberal use of Denglish, text predominantly in Deutsch but punctuated with phrases and interjections in English. The character who spoke the most English was wealthy Englishman who popped up throughout the show to add comic relief.
Here he is:

 

 The experience of a German Old West is definitely a bit difficult to explain but the bottom line is that it was so fun.

A metaphor for you: The context in which someone exists alters their perceptions of everything, like the lenses in glasses.

Just sit for a second on the phrase, "The Wild West". Immediately after reading the words you're filled with images, associations, and stereotypes. At this point, you're already one level back from the actual history. This is your basic lens. You see everything through these basic lenses that your culture, experiences, and context built into you and you need them to attain understanding of foreign or distant topics by interpretation through or association with personal experience. Now let's take another step back. Karl May's books are a portrayal of the American portrayal of the Old West, altered by all the differences that make Germany not the US. Germany is pretty far away from the Old West, so the lenses he adds have quite a heft prescription. The combination of the two lenses is a little trippy but not irreconcilable. Next, his interpretation of an interpretation is taken by a production team and a bunch of actors and turned into something they connect with and audiences will love. The fourth lens is a bit more nuanced than the others. It is the effect of my preconceptions about Germans and Germany. What I expect them to laugh at or when I expect a cheer also affects how I watch and understand the show. This lens isn't purposeful interpretation, it is more of a subconscious self-consciousness about a foreign portrayal of a national aspect. So now I'm sitting there with these crazy glasses on preparing to enjoy whatever the night has in store.

Hopefully that was halfway-coherent because it's actually really cool. Anyways, Winnetou I: Blut Bruder was quite the experience and if next summer's production starts while I'm still in Germany, I'll be there. Maybe my perspective will already have changed between summer 2013 and summer 2014.

A couple of miscellaneous thoughts 3

1) I have seen five wild hedgehogs since I have been in Germany. I don't think I have ever seen a wild hedgehog in the US.

1a) The German word "Igel" is pronounced like the English word "eagle". However, it means hedgehog, not eagle. Talk about false cognates.

2) On the other hand, I have seen almost no squirrels. Coming from the U of I campus and from Kenney Gym (which often serves as a home to confused squirrels), the apparent lack of squirrels is a kind of weird.

2a) "Squirrel" in German is "Eichhörnchen". I have been tested multiple times on my ability to say "Eichhörnchen". It's really not that bad though because "squirrel" is a really hard word for Germans to say so, after they test you, you can test them right back.

3) While at home my lovely blue TI-84 Plus is a run-of-the-mill, assumed part of high school math class, here, my math class uses scientific-ish kind of calculators. It was quite a shock after working all last year to maintain my green bar in C6 or whatever objective tools was in Calc 2/3.

4) Papers/spirals/binders/etc. are not 3-hole-punched they are 4-hole-punched and only the middle two holes are really ever used.

5) No one in my class brings their laptop to school everyday.

6) We use overhead projectors and transparencies all the time in class.

7)The math sequence here is completely different than in the US. When I started in my school, we were working with vectors and doing things I had just learned last year. Now, we are doing integrals as sums of areas of trapezoids.

8) Everyone uses these shnazzy looking pens. I don't really know what to call them but they aren't ball-point or felt-tip. Anyways, they're cool.

WHAT?! I've been here for a month?!

Well, the first month has absolutely flown by. Actually, I'm pretty sure it still hasn't sunk in that I am in Germany and will be until next JULY. So my one-monthaversery with Deutschland means a few different things for me:

1) Sprachkurs and Orientierungskurs are done.
2) I no longer have daily contact with my English-speaking YFU buddies.
3) I have left my first host family.
4) I've just completed my first week with my new host family.
5) I have to go to school.
6) I'm starting to create a schedule here.
7) I can actually understand a fair bit of German and even can talk to people.

Explanations:

1-2) I was in a language and culture course for my first three weeks in Germany with other YFU/CBYX exchange students of similar lingual level in German. In Sprachkurs, we talked about grammar, watched a movie, talked about the news, and whatever other language related questions we had. In the culture course, we talked about the German political system, food, problem solving strategies, cultural difference, stereotypes, YFU's mission, and so many other things. Although at first it seemed like it was going to be a drag, my awesome group of ten students really bonded and had a great time. Basically, YFU planted instant, sympathetic friends for me to ease my transition to life here and it totally worked. Having teachers to force me out my comfort zone and answer my questions as well as peers who could understand my situation and accompany me out of my safety bubble was so so so so so so so helpful. Whoever thought of this is (kind of) a genius (this system is kind of rough in other respects). Anyways, at the end of the course we had an adorable little potluck thing and we thanked our teachers and families and our teachers told us how awesome we all were and we all hung out and whatnot. Finally, after three weeks of class, laughs, and denglish, we tearfully parted with the families that helped us through the wild first three weeks and the real exchange year began. Now, we are scattered all over Germany to have our own experiences to share at the midyear trip.

3) Dang, was that sad. They helped me so much and were so awesome and my limited language ability made it difficult to properly take part in everything I wanted to be a part of. Luckily for me, I didn't move far from them so I could see them during the year.

4) I'm super excited to be a part of my new host family! In this family, I have a host mother and father, a host sister and a host brother (who is going to the US at the end of the week for his own exchange year).

5-6) SCHOOL again... Even though I've graduated...
School here:
I am in the twelfth grade
Uni basically made sure that no high school could have more work.
We have block scheduling.
For the most part, students stay in the same classroom (with the same classmates) and the teachers come in to teach and then go to their next class.
They have so many breaks.
The school day is super short.
On Thursdays, I have two periods of German with the eighth grade and then two periods of German with my class. There is quite a large difference between the two.
I walk to school.
I don't eat lunch at school.
In the Oberstufe, the teacher use Sie with the students.
There is very little homework and the majority of grades are based on class participation.
I'm playing viola in the orchestra, singing soprano in the chorus, and playing piano in the Big Band. 
There's probably going to be more on school in the future but for now, that's enough.

7) More later. Too large of a topic for here.

So, basically, I've survived a month and it's been awesome. There has been so much change in the last month that I'm looking forward to settling in here in Norderstedt.

My first Bundesliga experience

Before I came to Germany, I of course knew that Soccer was extremely popular. However, there is no way that I could have imagined the insanity of an actual game. My host father and I got going early to beat the traffic and arrived at the field an hour before the game. We stopped after we parked the car for Bratwursts, Senf, and Bier. We continued our trek through the sea of Van der Vaart and Adler Trikots until we used these nifty little season-pass credit-card-looking-things to get in. However, we could not simply proceed to our seats, we had to make a detour. Why? Because I didn’t have a HSV scarf. My Gastschwester was kind enough to lend me her jersey but the scarf is actually the most important part of fan gear (as I was soon to learn).

My host family has pretty much the best seats possible. There are two different floors of seats in the stadium and in the second floor there are two sections. We sat in the first row of the third level next to the fan curve (but not in because that is a little too crazy for anyone but the moderately intoxicated hardcore fans). It’s awesome. You can see perfectly, you’re close to the crazy, intense fans, and the roof, overhang thing shelters you from the weather. Although I did not have the foresight to lookup/learn any of the HSV cheers or songs, when the singer (who is coveted but will only sing for HSV games) was raised up on the little platform to sing the Club’s song I got to wave my scarf with the best.

I could tell you more about the club’s history or give a play-by-play of my first Bundesliga game but that stuff you can look up yourself on the Internet and read the facts for yourself. What I want to talk about is fans.

The second half was well underway when I heard yelling. Yes, people were shouting and singing all around me, but this voice cut through the homogeneous roar of the crowd with a different, intense, angry tone. I looked to my left at the group of people gathered tightly together in the curve of the stadium. I had never been so close to a fight, let alone a fight not between silly, scared boys in school or wherever but rather between two grown men (primarily two men --others became involved but they were just bandwagoners) who believe wholeheartedly in their side. Security was called and a team of six Stewards separated the men and led them out. (Quick disclaimer: this like NEVER happens, so don’t be all freaked out. A real fight is a total fluke.)

It was weird, I thought, that an away fan would come all the way from the away section in the absolute farthest point of the stadium to antagonize the losing HSV fans. Turns out, that I was right, that is much to far for an away fan to trek just to be obnoxious. It was, in fact, two HSV fans fighting. At this point, I was shocked by how the electric camaraderie that permeated the stadium’s atmosphere in the beginning of the game and has struck me so much had turned to the scary violence I’d just witnessed.

What I saw at work was the conflict between two types of fan. I’m only going to approach the soccer aspect of the conflict, although it is not really so simple. There are five major types of fans in the stadium at a game. The lowest level of fans is the Dragged-along-fans. These are the girlfriends, dates, and friends that are only there because someone in the group they are there with love soccer and they are being supportive. The next level is the Just-‘cause-fans. These are the people who don’t really care about the team but like soccer, or at least the experience of going to a soccer game and buy a ticket just ‘cause. The middle level is the Once-in-a-lifetime-fans. These are the individuals that honestly really like the club but just don’t have the time or means to go to all the games. Their tickets were given to them as presents or purchased as a special treat. Level one and two are the most intense fans and to the untrained eye seems to be indistinguishable. They both follow every single game and know all about the history of the team. They go to every game they can and could talk for hours about the minutia of their team. They are entirely tricked out in their team’s gear. However, they are not the same. Somewhere, amongst all their Fußball passion, their motivations don’t line up. The best name I can think of for the level two fan is the Die-hard-commercial fan and the level one fan is the Die-hard-tradition fan. The distinguishing feature between the two is that level two appreciates soccer as a business while the level one fans undyingly love their club. Within this distinction the tension lies. Let me try to elucidate the conflict with my experience as the second half of the game became sadder and sadder for the HSV.

The first half ends with the hopeful score of 1-1 and as the team leaves the field for the Pause, the fans eagerly await the newly energized team after a talking to from the coach. However, when they return and the second half gets underway, there is no positive change noted in the HSV. Pass by pass, shot by shot, lost challenge by lost challenge the game slips away from the HSV. As the away team attains total control of the game, the level two fans bemoan the money they wasted on a team that isn’t even there to play and when the ball hits the back of the net again for the wrong team, these fans don’t boo, they cheer. Frustrated with their team they cheer for the opposing team. At this point, the level twoers were cheering for the team that makes the game interesting. When the HSV has clearly lost, level three through five flood out of stadium to beat traffic. They are followed by depressed and angry level two fans. Who is left in the stadium? Livid level oners. These individuals launch garbage, including full cups of beer, from their seats toward the field. This is the only time where I was sitting was not ideal. As the first beer splashed down in the aisle next to me my host father suggested we relocate.

So, the conclusion I have come to is that the fight I witnessed arose out of this misunderstanding between these two types of soccer fans. It was a crazy day but super fun and I can’t wait till my next chance to see a game, although my next game could definitely be a St. Pauli game.