I thought my brain had already cannonballed into the German-alphabet-noodle-soup-pool, but apparently it was just knee-deep. The past few days have been über immersive! What with the German material I've been reading and writing as of late, let's just say my dreams have even been a tidal wave of Buchstabensuppe auf Deutsch (aka "alphabet soup in German").
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| Look at that ocean of knowledge! |
First of all, I've been working on the Facharbeit, which is a research paper all eleventh graders in Gymnasium here write. It's been super fascinating learning about how the public opinion toward GMOs in Germany developed, but after attempting to make a coherent, scholarly work, my little noggin feels like it's just completed some sort of marathon and needs to be wrapped up in a space blanket and channeled Gatorade through an IV. I finished it this weekend, though, which feels just about as wonderful as I'd imagine crossing the Portland Marathon finish line would. A huge shoutout to my host mom for being an amazing proofreader and teaching me the nuances of written German!
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| It's like one of those movies when someone makes a big discovery and then tosses their draft papers to the wind from a balcony. |
Also in the theme of writing, Saturday morning was our monthly meeting for the Aachener-Zeitung student editorial board. I've written four articles so far for the student section of the local paper, and was assigned a new one today for an April issue. During our meeting, we also discussed some of the articles our colleagues had written. We read one that touched on a few trends that'd "cycled through youth culture." They were the same trends I dealt with freshman and sophomore year, namely: YOLO, SWAG, and the hipster. According to the article's timeline and the general consensus of all the other people in the room, it took those trends about two years after developing in the US to establish themselves in Germany. But oh, did they make it!
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| My first article from back in November about the teen activist Joshua Wong. |
We then talked about a letter sent to our editor due to the word choice in a past article. One of the students, who's currently in twelfth grade, wrote about the "final solution to what to do after school." For example where to go to college, what to do job-wise, and if you should consider going abroad. Well, in the article she used the word "Endlösung," which directly translates to "final solution" in German, and is unfortunately pretty much solely associated today with the Holocaust. I've written for other newspapers in the US and heard all sorts of feedback and problems from my editors, but journalism truly is a different art and game in every language, both linguistically and culturally.
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| For our "Nostalgia" page in December I explained how the typewriter made a comeback. |
And speaking of cultural issues, I'm almost done with a book called Make Me German. It's written by a British ex-pat named Adam Fletcher who recounts the different cultural lessons he learned during his first six years or so living in Germany. Plus, bonus feature-- it's double sided! That means the front cover and first half of the book is written in German and the opposite side is the same thing but all in English. Since it has humor throughout, the English side is helpful as a sort of glossary for new, perhaps more colloquial/regional words and phrases.
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| Mallorca, Deutsche Bahn, Fußball... it's fun for the whole family! |
I highly recommend the fun, quick-read if you ever plan on visiting Germany or even want to learn a bit about this fascinating country. One result of his humorous writing is some stereotypes are played up, which I found funny and surprisingly poignant. For example, not every German takes a trip to Mallorca... but a lot do. I guess it's sort of like not every American goes to Disneyland, but a whole lot sure do. It's actually made me think quite a bit about how stereotypically American I am, which is very. I've eaten quite a bit of apple pie in my life, gone to Disneyland, played school sports, and got my driver's license at sixteen. My lifestyle in Oregon when I left in August was great, but I've definitely picked up a few lifestyle ideas in Germany I'll be bringing home for good.