Once again I must backtrack and remember things to share, seeing as my post is two weeks late. Last weekend the international office at the University here hosted a welcoming party for international students. I went, expecting a medium sized room with fifty or so people eating crackers and drinking water spitzer. It appears the university international office’s idea of a party is quite similar to that of a college child. There were hundreds of people, bartenders who burned a thousand calories to the hour, and live music. Finding the place was rather difficult, I ran into a parade of Quebec-inites in the street and we spent thirty minutes walking to and fro. At the party I sat down next to a group of eight or so Germans who were more than happy to immediately attack me with questions concerning American viewpoints. Small talk at the University here is different; no one really cares about the weather (though in Madison’s defense, it is really fascinating how cold it can actually get). They were very friendly and drove me home at the nights end.
Friday I got a job offer, Sunday I went to check it out. It’s in a little village called “Gutach” about a 25 minute train ride out of Freiburg. I teach English. It’s a blast. Sunday was “Speed Talking.” I sat behind a table, and every five minutes a new person would come and we would speak English. I spoke with almost four generations: some six or seven year old children, and an eighty year old man (who I had a fascinating conversation with after I told him I was a philosophy major. He and I are meeting on Wednesday and he is going to teach me what he knows, over coffee and chocolates). At any rate I took the job and last Wednesday had my first real day. It’s a great deal. I teach English for three hours, then I receive an hour and a half of one on one German Tutoring. And I get paid.
On Tuesday I confirmed all of my classes. It looks like this. I have classes Monday through Thursday. I’m taking courses at lots of different places. At the International House here, I’m taking an “Aufbau Kurs,” basically a building up my German skills class. A German class, simply put. At the Speech Institute here I’m taking a “Verbal Exercise” class. At the University I’m taking a “Poetry after 1989” class (which has a focus on slam poetry!! I’m really excited about that) and a “poetry and emotion” class. Then at the Pedegogische University I’m taking a literature class about “Die Novelle” which is a German structure of writing, very popular. These books are usually 100-150 pages. Not a short story, not a novel, a Novelle.
I’m excited about my courses. I’ve always had the following hypothesis. Creativity in the English language concerns itself very much with word play, word selections, how two words sound together, how one can describe things. It’s the words that matter. I’ve thought that the German language, creatively, works a little different, with a great focus on the structure of the sentence, as opposed to the word selection. The other day I received my first poetry reading assignments, and the very first poem I read was nothing but structure play, and it was amazing, it made me happy (actually, it wasn’t the first poem I read, it was just the first one I understood. The other two? Goodness. Don’t ask.).
Today I went to a flea market. I finally bought a BICYCLE. Six weeks without a bike, though I could borrow one, is the longest stretch without for me in the last, I don’t know, decade. It’s wonderful. The man I bought it from was very friendly, we traded numbers, and after my year with it I’m bringing it back to him and he’s going to give me my money back :). I also bought clothing for pennies because at flea markets here that’s all it takes. The market was in a different land and I blindly took a bus there so I didn’t know how to bike back, but I met someone who was leaving to go back to the city as well and followed her. Turns out she lives a few doors down from me. That has happened a few times, I love it.
This Monday I finally start classes, I can’t wait. It’s funny to think that everyone is Madison, everyone who has survived Swine Flu that is, is already done with midterms and finals are far, but looming.
pictures soon. this internet connection can't handle black and white.
ciao ciao.
@ the job, the pix, the parties: Radical.
ReplyDelete@ language:
I can't speak well enough for poetry or at all for German, but as far as English prose goes, I know a lot of people who would contest your contension that diction has some hazy precedence over syntax in English--myself included. Syntax is the crux of composition. I have read many stories that display excellent word choice but fall flat due to dull or overreaching sentence construction. In fact, I would argue that syntax is immeasurably more important than word choice. In composition, big words can too often ring meaningless, whereas effective, inviting sentences have the unique ability to engage a reader.
The complexity and flexibility of English astounds me more and more every day. Don't give up on it yet! (Not that I think you're going to...the Boston pull is too strong, and there are not enough Germans there.) Nonetheless, I am awed and impressed by your linguistic comparisons and hope to see more of them.
Your native tongue's staunch defender,
Henry