From bad to wurst
Another week of school, another few days of feeling like I'm a fraud for actually being paid to do this. This week has been very easy because lots of English teachers were off school, and for some incomprehensible reason, this means that I don't have to go to their lessons. Although you might think it would make a lot of sense for me to go, so the students have some kind of continuity, and you might also think I could even cover the lessons so that other teachers don't have to, it seems that the school loves to give me no responsibility at all. I did go to a few extra lessons with my favourite teacher though, as she seems to really enjoy having me there and I feel as though I'm actually contributing to the class, so it wasn't too bad. It was in one of her classes today that I got the inspiration for this blog post title; we were doing adjectives, and the task was to list them as the 'root' word, the comparative and then the superlative. One unfortunate girl's list ran as follows: bad, wurst, worse. I don't know why seeing 'Wurst' in that context was so funny, but I do know that I had to quickly walk to the back of the classroom after I'd pointed it out to her so I could laugh unobtrusively for five minutes.
There was another amusing incident today in a lesson about New York. At the end of the lesson we asked the kids to write a few sentences in their own words about New York, just as a quick recap. When asked to read his aloud, one boy read the following: "it's a big city with lots of culture and restaurants and it's a really horrible place to live". After the initial surprise, we questioned him as to where he would like to live instead. "The Gobi desert." And why is that? That incredibly specific desert? "There are no people there." Oh right, and what will you do for water? "Rain." At which point the other teacher lost her impassive German teacher-facade and replied, "Yep, all the rain that falls in the Gobi desert, GOOD IDEA".
It was also in this lesson that the same teacher gave me the breathtaking compliment: "You are doing fine as a teacher." I of course started blushing and gabbling - oh my God, thank you so much!!! etc. It was rather overwhelming, if I'm honest.
In other news: something very exciting has happened!
I can't remember if I posted anything about this, but I decided two or three weeks ago that I wanted to move house. While living in this Internat is okay, it's not what I wanted from my accommodation in Germany - German companionship that will potentially lead to actual friendship. Also wifi that I can use in more than one room and on more than one device; at the moment I can only use wifi on my laptop in the kitchen (which does sound a bit like a game of Cluedo), so of course, I spend quite a lot of time in the kitchen. Why wouldn't you? It's the only room in the flat which has wifi, food, and tea-making facilities. However, the kitchen is used as a thoroughfare for everyone who lives on this floor, which means that every single day we greet each other at least five or six times as they toddle through, see me on my laptop at the counter, everyone says "Hallo!", and then they continue without another word, leaving us all with the growing suspicion that this will soon be too ridiculous to continue.
Anyway, I started looking on the dreaded wg-gesucht for the second round since coming to Germany. It was much less stressful this time, however, because I was safe in the knowledge that even if I didn't find anywhere, I would still have a roof over my head and the aforementioned tea-making facilities to keep me going. With that in mind, I emailed about twenty people in total, although there were probably more I could have contacted. I also tried a new website, after I'd got bored of waiting to hear back, which turned out to be a good idea in the end. Two viewings were eventually set up on the same day: last Wednesday. I'll mention the second one first because (Spoiler!) the first one I visited I ended up getting!! The second house viewing was the most awkward experience I have had since being here, and actually since I can remember. The flat was dark and dingy and the people were perfectly friendly, but by that point I had already decided I didn't want to live there so I was probably making very little effort to be my usual devilishly charming self, with the consequence that it was just awful and I couldn't wait to leave. In fact, I was so glad to leave that I became somewhat hysterical and rushed to the supermarket on my way home where I bought three pepperoni pizzas and a bottle of wine for €4.98 (about £3.90 - I love Germany) while laughing manically on the phone to Jack.
The first house viewing, on the other hand, was an absolute delight; the flat is right in the centre of Chemnitz and will be a minute's walk from the Christmas markets when they open (!!!). There's currently a couple living there, Melanie and Philipp, but he's moving out soon to start a placement. Melanie is 22 and a student, which seemed entirely ideal to me, and a thousand times better than the 16-year-old boys who are my current Mitbewohner. The three of us got on really well anyway, and they invited me to a WG party with their friends the following evening, which was quite a scary idea, but I knew I had to do it because what is your year abroad for, if not to be utterly terrifying? Jack came to Chemnitz that Thursday and we went to the party together (much less scary), where we charmed with our skills at beer pong (me), downing beer (Jack), listening to drunk stories about life and exes (me), and battling drunk homophobes in German (Jack). All in all, a roaring success, apart from one big problem: the peppermint schnapps they got us to drink. It looks and tastes exactly like mouthwash, and causes the drinker to be very ill the next morning even if they honestly didn't even drink that much the night before. Its one redeeming feature is its adorable nickname: Pfeffi (from Pfefferminz, of course). "WHO WANTS A SHOT OF PFEFFI!!", you might shout, if you were German and you thought it was an acceptable liquid with which to burden your body.
In conclusion though, I think the unfortunate Pfeffi side-effects were worth it, because Melanie decided she did want me to live with her, and I get to move in on 1st December! Only three and a half more weeks in the Internat, hooray!
It was also in this lesson that the same teacher gave me the breathtaking compliment: "You are doing fine as a teacher." I of course started blushing and gabbling - oh my God, thank you so much!!! etc. It was rather overwhelming, if I'm honest.
In other news: something very exciting has happened!
I can't remember if I posted anything about this, but I decided two or three weeks ago that I wanted to move house. While living in this Internat is okay, it's not what I wanted from my accommodation in Germany - German companionship that will potentially lead to actual friendship. Also wifi that I can use in more than one room and on more than one device; at the moment I can only use wifi on my laptop in the kitchen (which does sound a bit like a game of Cluedo), so of course, I spend quite a lot of time in the kitchen. Why wouldn't you? It's the only room in the flat which has wifi, food, and tea-making facilities. However, the kitchen is used as a thoroughfare for everyone who lives on this floor, which means that every single day we greet each other at least five or six times as they toddle through, see me on my laptop at the counter, everyone says "Hallo!", and then they continue without another word, leaving us all with the growing suspicion that this will soon be too ridiculous to continue.
Anyway, I started looking on the dreaded wg-gesucht for the second round since coming to Germany. It was much less stressful this time, however, because I was safe in the knowledge that even if I didn't find anywhere, I would still have a roof over my head and the aforementioned tea-making facilities to keep me going. With that in mind, I emailed about twenty people in total, although there were probably more I could have contacted. I also tried a new website, after I'd got bored of waiting to hear back, which turned out to be a good idea in the end. Two viewings were eventually set up on the same day: last Wednesday. I'll mention the second one first because (Spoiler!) the first one I visited I ended up getting!! The second house viewing was the most awkward experience I have had since being here, and actually since I can remember. The flat was dark and dingy and the people were perfectly friendly, but by that point I had already decided I didn't want to live there so I was probably making very little effort to be my usual devilishly charming self, with the consequence that it was just awful and I couldn't wait to leave. In fact, I was so glad to leave that I became somewhat hysterical and rushed to the supermarket on my way home where I bought three pepperoni pizzas and a bottle of wine for €4.98 (about £3.90 - I love Germany) while laughing manically on the phone to Jack.
The first house viewing, on the other hand, was an absolute delight; the flat is right in the centre of Chemnitz and will be a minute's walk from the Christmas markets when they open (!!!). There's currently a couple living there, Melanie and Philipp, but he's moving out soon to start a placement. Melanie is 22 and a student, which seemed entirely ideal to me, and a thousand times better than the 16-year-old boys who are my current Mitbewohner. The three of us got on really well anyway, and they invited me to a WG party with their friends the following evening, which was quite a scary idea, but I knew I had to do it because what is your year abroad for, if not to be utterly terrifying? Jack came to Chemnitz that Thursday and we went to the party together (much less scary), where we charmed with our skills at beer pong (me), downing beer (Jack), listening to drunk stories about life and exes (me), and battling drunk homophobes in German (Jack). All in all, a roaring success, apart from one big problem: the peppermint schnapps they got us to drink. It looks and tastes exactly like mouthwash, and causes the drinker to be very ill the next morning even if they honestly didn't even drink that much the night before. Its one redeeming feature is its adorable nickname: Pfeffi (from Pfefferminz, of course). "WHO WANTS A SHOT OF PFEFFI!!", you might shout, if you were German and you thought it was an acceptable liquid with which to burden your body.
In conclusion though, I think the unfortunate Pfeffi side-effects were worth it, because Melanie decided she did want me to live with her, and I get to move in on 1st December! Only three and a half more weeks in the Internat, hooray!
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| Look at the tiny red cups. Tiny. |
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