Working hard, playing harder

What a week it has been! And to think that at the end of my last post I noted that I expected life to get a lot quieter once lectures started, how wrong I was! I can see already that this is going to be a term with limited sleep, I think there was only one night this week where I got more than 5 hours sleep, and the lack of curtains can't be blamed for that! I have decided that my stint in France has to be described under the heading "one long holiday" while Germany will be known under the heading "work hard, party harder"!

On Tuesday the lectures began, with a full day, 8am until 6pm, it was an absolute beast of a day! I am quite simply not used, and unable, to concentrate for 2 hour stints at a time, especially not in German when half goes over my head and I consequently switch off. My first seminar started very badly. The tutor had sent us the work by email and we were told to print it out, but with it being the bank holiday weekend the library was shut until 8am on Tuesday morning, the time that the seminar was supposed to start. As we had been prewarned that lecturers arrive late we reckoned we'd have enough time to print out the work, and make it just in time. Oh how very wrong we were! We arrived late and got a proper ticking off from the lecturer, it took me right back to my school days. The words the lecturer used were that she was "stink sauer"...even if you don't speak German I'm pretty sure that you'll get the idea that she was not happy! Certainly not a good start, and that lecturer has been particularly cold towards my little group of late comers ever since!

The lectures and seminars this week have been a complete mix of things, I'll run through a few of the high-lights and memorable moments...

We aren't actually properly enrolled for any courses, so we have had to frantically send emails round to request special permission to attend the lectures, which are completely and utterly over subscribed. There is simply not enough space in the rooms, there are people flowing out the doors, sitting on the floor and stealing chairs from other rooms. I was in one seminar that only 5 of us took (more on this one later!), and during the 15 minute wait for the lecturer our room was gradually emptied of chairs, one by one 20 chairs were taken!!!

In my first linguistics lecture there were 25 people officially signed up and 21 on the waiting list. They all turned up and she went through every name saying if they were allowed to stay or not. She got to the end of the list and asked if there was anyone whose name she hadn't read out, so of course I had to put up my hand. She then remembered that I was an exchange student and said that yes of course I could stay as an extra. All those who had just been told that there was no space for any extras turned round and I could see a sea of angry faces, I have never felt so hated! In every class we go to we are known as the exchange pupils, although it can be very annoying we do get proper VIP treatment, just like in France with the mayor!

This class had another funny moment, it was a phon phon ortho class and so she was talking about sounds in different languages. She asked the class what the English for a word was, but as I hadn't heard the word she asked I couldn't reply, but someone else did. The answer was "sound" and she then asked for the French equivalent. No-one in this class studies French, so no-one volunteered the answer. She got a bit annoyed so, as I did know the response, I thought I'd better say it, which I did. Once again everyone turned round ("an exchange student who knows the answer?!") and she thanked me and said that she was glad that there was a French person here!!! Hahaha and to think that I hadn't known the English response. It hasn't been the only time this week that my nationality has been confused. I once replied to a tutor that I was from Grossbritannien and straight back she said to me how sorry they were about the earthquake, much to my utter astonishment! It turned out that she had misheard "Italien"! And of course the number of times that I've been taken as American is innumerable...!

I had one very enjoyable lecture about foreign words in the German language, there are soooo many, they even have dictionaries the thickness of a brick on them! Anyway what made the lecture so interesting was not the content (well for me maybe, but I won't share the ins and outs with you now!...although I can't risk adding in that the Germans use phrases such as "Ich habe es gebookmarkt!") but the lecturer himself! For starters his name is Wolf Peter Klein, what a name! Secondly he was so jolly it was unbelievable, he was very rotund, slightly balding and very merry! He was also really friendly and when I spoke to him at the end of the lecture he was very interested to hear how we were settling in, and very concerned about my lack of curtains...I wouldn't be surprised if he brought me a pair to our next lecture!

On Wednesday, I had a French lesson which was really good, I do actually seriously miss French and France, at the moment I have to say that I much prefer the French language. What was funny is my complete obliviousness to which words belong to each language, at one point the tutor asked us to name types of literature, I called out a German word, totally unknowingly, much to the amusement of everyone. Fortunately, the Germans seem far more capable of putting on a French accent than my French pupils were, so at least we can follow what's going on.

On Wednesday afternoon we have possibly the best course ever. It's entitled "Erfurt, the city of my studies" and it appears that we are going to spend every week going on a tourist walk of the town, perfect, particularly as the weather is still absolutely gorgeous. I think my description of it as "a nice spring walk with a very knowledgeable aunt" is spot on! But despite being an utter doss intellectually, it is really interesting, if anyone comes to visit me (do!) I will be able to tell you a lot about the city, probably far more than I could about York or anywhere at home!

As regards the classes there have been the good (morphology, with an extremely good looking young professor!) and the really really bad, French Lexicography being one of these! It was just absolutely cringeworthy! This "lecture" was the one where there were only 5 of us and thus was not really a lecture, more student participation required! The topic alone is highly complicated, and was conducted in the fastest German that I have ever heard (which is quite a statement for me to make considering the rate of my own speech!). What's more is that she persistently asked me questions, but didn't look directly at me when speaking to me, rather a space just above my left ear! I hadn't understood much so couldn't reply to any of her questions, oh it was awful! The minutes have never passed so slowly, two hours of pure torture. I won't be going back to that one, which is a shame as what I did understand was really interesting and right up my street.

I have an advanced grammar class which is taken by some foreign students and some German students who want to become German teachers. We were paired up, one foreigner with one German student and had to work through a gap filling exercise (slotting in the appropriate determiner, regarding gender and case). We agreed on all the answers, except one, and had a bit of a debate over this one. We were chosen to say our answers to the class and when we got to this answer she told the tutor that we'd disagreed. It turned out that I was correct, I was very, very happy and cried out to the whole class "exchange student 1, Germany 0" much to all of the Germans' surprise (and slight horror)!!! Ah, I am still very pleased that my grammar is better than that of a native German...if they can't learn it, how we can, I have no idea!

The teaching methods here and the general university atmosphere is so different too, which is certainly not helped by the fact that an awful lot of German students go home at the weekend. As I have mentioned, we have to do far more courses than in Britain, I now "specialise" in 10 disciplines, but they're in such less depth than at York. Having said that, one lecturer set us the task of learning the anatomy of vocal tract in German, Latin and Greek...you wouldn't get that in York. And I read in one of the mammoth chunks of reading that "the idea of a teacher of any discipline without good knowledge of Latin is unthinkable"...I know for sure that that train of thought is not shared in Britain, teaching of Latin went out years ago. However, a German friend of mine said that her Grandmother was an English teacher for 40 years and had not been to any English speaking country, that too is unimaginable. Apparently it was exactly like in the books when she finally went during her retirement!!!

Something that also struck me as very strange is the distinct lack of that famous German organisation as regards assessment at the end of the course, it seems to be something very much open to discussion! On the down side however, there will definitely be some major essays (12 pages of the history of the German language anyone?!) and I am already signed up for a 30 minute presentation on Metasprachdiskurse...dreaded already!

The final lecture related comment that I will make is that at the end of all lectures and seminars they all knock on the tables! I was a little shocked the first time I heard it but have since taken on this strange custom with great enthusiasm...I think that I will have knuckles made of steel by the end of it!

Well that's all that's been happening by day, and the nights have been equally as entertaining! I have been out every night this week, there is just so much going on, we have a large network of exchange students and have met lots of Germans and all invites are open to anyone. The highlights of this week would be: experiencing the Mensa turned into a hilarious nightclub (much more like a Danesfield school disco/Goodricke event than a nightclub!); meeting my 70 year old professor (more on that in a sec!); a rave in the cellar of a disused church on top of a hill (complete with more bottles of tequila than I have ever seen in my life, even in a supermarket!); gatecrashing the birthday party of someone I've never met (second time I've done that in 2 months!); an Ostalgie party (my thoughts on this will not be disclosed!) and Greek Easter (the orthodox church has a different date).

Finally I am starting to make some friends and have met such a variety of people, it's funny how we've all been thrown together and are already making friendships that will hopefully last far longer than our short time here. Going dancing with them is hilarious, from a Hungarian "gypsy hip hop" dancer, Khazakstanian twisted leg dancing and I have never tried my hand (or leg!) at so much Greek and Spanish dancing in all my life, I'm sorry to say that I'm certainly not getting any better at it though!!!

The culture differences stretch far further than the obvious things like dancing, clothing, food and language. For example, we were discussing where we come from and comparing my village of 90 inhabitants, with their cities of millions of people. And the way we view being out alone at night, I walked alone at night a lot in France (I think I walked the path home at every single hour of the day and night at some point during my time in France) and got completely used to it, while they're from dangerous cities with mafia! My Hungarian friend is never out with out her tool to give an electric shock and my Czech friend has a pepper spray for unruly men that she carries at all times! I would not like to meet these two and their weapons at night! It's true that Erfurt does have some very rough areas (we've witnessed all sorts of crime already), so maybe I ought to look into an anti-attack, or maybe self defence classes!

Another thing that I don't think I ever mentioned in France, but happened there too, is that in no other country (as far as I am aware) is putting up two fingers rude, so I am constantly sworn up as people tell me they want two of something! I remember Cecile doing this to a man in a shop in London and he was very taken a back!!! Talking about offending people, a friend of mine introduced a girl from Taiwan as from Korea, she was really not happy about that! And my Czech friend said the other day that "Britain is not part of the EU", ho hum!

As I mentioned earlier, I met my 70 year old professor and his wife the other day, they are really nice and extremely interesting. They've travelled the world and have so many funny anecdotes to tell. We went on the first of our hikes today, it was beautiful, we walked up a valley to a hidden pub that didn't have any electricity supply, then across fields, which were just immense expanses of green, i have never seen such big fields and space. The countryside is gorgeous here, especially as blossom is out everywhere, I can see that there will be plenty of cherry picking to enjoy later in the year!

Well that's the lot for now (and I mean a lot!), the final anecdote of the blog is this....I have a German friend who spent last summer giving out leaflets for a company. Completely normal, except the funny thing is that she had to get everyone she gave a leaflet to to pose for a photo as evidence that she gave it to them. How strange is that?!?!

Oh goodness and I was just rereading this when a Slovakian friend knocked at the door, she asked if she could get some of my photos. I replied and said to follow me in. She said "what?", so I repeated what I'd said again, to which she said "could you please speak in German or at least English?"!!! I'd spoken French to her twice utterly unaware. I can't believe it! I am going CRAZY, there are so many words and languages running round my head I can't cope! So, until next time, tschuess, a bientot, adios and goodbye!