This week marks the four-week post of my time in Germany.
How cer-aaa-zy is that?! On Wednesday I
will have been here exactly a month. I’m having such a great time so far, so if
time would be so kind and slow down a bit, I would be very grateful!
I feel like I’m finally getting into the swing of things,
and establishing a routine and a life for myself here, especially with working
in the school, which is a nice feeling. Don’t get me wrong, the first few weeks
were brilliant in their own way too, but there’s always that feeling of
apprehension lurking in the pit of your stomach while you adjust to a new
place, as you’re never quite sure what each new day will hold, but, (*touch
wood*) that seems to have gone now. I’m
becoming more confident, both when I’m hanging around in the staff room in
between lessons, and when I’m actually teaching. I’ve added another couple of
lessons to my repertoire this week. On Wednesday I taught a class of Year 11s,
and surprised even myself which just how much I enjoyed it! The class is full
of really lovely students, and my fabulous mentor teacher was in the room with
me, which helped. But there seems to be some sort of bug going around school,
so the teachers were dropping like flies towards the back end of the week,
which meant that on Thursday I had to teach a class of twenty 16 year olds
completely on my own. Although the thought of this beforehand terrified me –
the class can become…restless…shall we say, all I had to do was remind myself a
few times: “me, teacher; you, student,” and it proved much easier than I thought
to keep their attention. I even managed to raise my voice a few times to
quieten them down, and that’s normally not something I’m very good at!
I’ve also managed to download a few of my favourite TV
programmes onto my computer. So I’m now able to watch ‘The Great British Bake
Off,’ ‘Dr Who,’ and even ‘Mock the Week’ entirely at my leisure, which is a
nice touch of home to have, especially on quieter days like Sundays, or if I’ve
got nothing to do of an evening. And very slowly, but nevertheless surely, I am
kind-of beginning to get to grips with the fact that they drive on the wrong
side of the road here. Actually, I say getting to grips, when what I actually
mean is that I’m learning that if I think the traffic should be coming at me
from one direction, in all likelihood it will be coming from the other
direction. Either way, I’m walking out into the road in front of far fewer cars
that I was when I first arrived! It may
even be time to invest in a bike!
One of my proudest moments of the week, however, was that
during this Wednesday’s Lehrersport, I managed to master that weird technique
volleyball players use whereby they clasp their hands together and hit the ball
with their wrists. Ok, so maybe ‘master’ is a strong word, but I managed to hit
the ball using this technique and…wait for it…it went over the net. Boom!! I also
almost scored a basket in basketball (funnily enough!). Get me!! However, the
dreaded word “hockey” was mentioned by one of the teachers; I have a feeling
they won’t want to let me loose with a hockey stick, so maybe I’ll sit that one
out!
Seeing as I’m spending the vast majority of my time at the
moment speaking and listening to people in German, I’d almost forgotten that I
do, in fact, study two languages at university. My somewhat limited knowledge
of the French language has been a little neglected thus far, so I thought it
was about time I refreshed my memory, and went along to a couple of Year 11
French lessons this week. It was useful,
as I don’t think I had realised up until that point, just how immersed in the
German language I had become, so I hope it will prove helpful to have a weekly
dose of French to keep me going. Otherwise I feel trying to attempt final-year
‘Modern French Language III’ could prove to be very tricky indeed!! The class I
went along to has only just started learning French properly, so, as you would
expect when learning a foreign language, the teacher kept switching between
French and the class’s native language. Unluckily enough for me, however, this
meant that the conversation in class kept switching between German and French,
which essentially meant I was learning a third language through my second
language. Mind-boggling is the only adjective I can think of to describe that
lesson! It’s good brain-training though, I suppose. Mixes it up a little.
And to tie up the week, I ventured to Frankfurt, to embrace
my inner-tourist, and meet up with a friend from uni. I don’t know about you,
but when I think of famous German cities, Frankfurt isn’t one that immediately
springs to mind. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect; envisaging perhaps a
60’s-style concrete monstrosity, but it isn’t like that at all! It’s an
eclectic mix of the very modern and very quintessentially German. Round one
corner, there are towering skyscrapers, huge modern shopping centres and of
course, the European Central Bank. (I did get very excited when we spotted the
big EURO sign outside, half-hoping that Gavin Hewitt would appear at any moment
and start doing a report for the BBC, but it’s closed at the weekends, so sadly no big ‘Greek Rescue’ this week.) Then
if you walk for five minutes towards the river, you come across the ‘Altstadt,’
where it’s all cobbled streets and iconic pointy-roofed buildings. It’s a
really nice city though, with something to appeal to everyone, and it’s really
easy to get to for me, so I definitely want to go back there at some point over
the year, especially when those infamous German Christmas markets get underway!
Outside the ECB
The Altstadt in Frankfurt
Ta ta for now.
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