My excuse is...I have no excuse

My friends, we have been settled here in Tubingen for over a week now and I have yet to post and update you patient folks about how it is being here! Ah yes, I posted about our apartment, but that's not what I'm here for, now is it?  No, it is not.

So what am I here for?  I shall tell you! 

(By the way, I'm noticing my prose is a little odd today...let's blame it on the fact that I spent all day speaking another language....)

So I am here in Tubingen for their awesome Summer Program, which they put on every year in the month of August when their regular University students have a summer break.  The program is for students all over the world--I've met people from Kyrgyzstan, Spain, France, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, just to name a few--but we can all speak together, because we speak German! It's pretty awesome.  Anyways, there's two groups in the program--For beginners and intermediate lerners of German there is the Sommerkurs, which has 7 difficulty levels into which they sort the students upon arrival--And then there's the Sommerakademie, for more advanced learners of German, in which there are 4 different classes that the students can choose from to participate in during the duration of the course.  If I can remember right, the courses to choose from are politics and the economy, a sort of German literature/culture/philosophy class, a class on colloquial speech and pronunciation, and then the class I'm in, which is for would-be German teachers, as well as current teachers looking to learn more about their field.  

The class I'm in is great.  We only have 3-4 people (out of 14) that are current teachers, so they can give a lot of tips and advice on how things have worked for them, but most of us are still university students that hope one day to maybe teach German as well.  Our teacher, Angelika (we're all on a first name basis here--it's weird! If I had called my professor at home "Michelle" instead of Professor James, I think I would have felt odd...) has been a teacher of German as a foreign language for years and knows SO much.  She's also very animated and active, which makes class interesting too ;)  We have class from 9-10:30 and 11-12:30 every weekday, and Angelika brings a different topic each day to work on--for instance, the 2nd day she set up different stations having to do with the geography and regional culture of Germany and we got to go around and do several of the activities that she's used with her students.  Yesterday, she showed us several games and activities she's used with her students to explore poetry and literature.  After every activity, we discuss what the purpose of the activity could be in a classroom, what the students could learn from it, what learning level it would be ideal for, and how we could alter it different age groups or learning levels.  I'm not gonna lie, it's really fun to play games for 3 hours...but it's also really interesting to discuss and think about how to incorporate these activities into a lesson plan or to use them to solidify certain themes or topics.  I don't know when (or if) in the future I'll go back and get the accreditation I'd need to teach German in the states, but getting this experience is definitely showing me that it's possible and that I'd enjoy it! 

So that's a little about my class! That, however, is only the morning! In the afternoon, we've started a group project, in which all of the students of the Sommerakademie met back up and picked different topics that they'd like to work on, and we've been split into 5 different groups based on our choice.  All of the topics have to do with learning more about Tubingen, with each group focusing on a particular aspect--one of the groups, for instance, is learning about student life in Tubingen, while another is learning more about what people do for work here in Tubingen.  My group is finding out more about "green" culture in Tubingen, and if Tubingen is really "green" at all! In comparison to the US (where everything is "trash" no matter if it can be recycled or not...) Tubingen is VERY green, but we're going at the topic from several different angles--HOW are the people here green, how do you see it in the way they lives their lives and so forth, and how do they feel about being "green"?  Within our little group we've split into 3 smaller groups that each focus on one of these topics, and for some unknown reason I picked the hardest one for me....finding out what people think about it! It only means, you know, stopping random strangers on the street to ask them a short survey about "greenness" in Tubingen...and hoping that they don't speak a funny dialect or anything...if I can even get up the guts to talk to them in the first place! Ah yes.  I'm not sure what possessed me to pick that group....but at least the other people in my mini-group are very nice, and I'm not the shyest person there! Believe it or not, there is a Korean girl there that is MUCH shyer than I am (I tend to be very shy in group situations....) and so I become downright outgoing in comparison!  

Anyways.  We meet everyday from 2:00-3:30 or 4 to work on our project (or well, we'll start more tomorrow!). I do think the topic is interesting, but it means getting out of my comfort zone, and it also happens to be RIGHT during the time when my pregnant body (becoming more and more pregnant daily!) REALLY wants a nap...so I have a hard time being very enthusiastic about it.  But, such is life! Doing things we don't really want to do, and hopefully learning from them, right?  Yes. 

Anywho.  There are lots of other optional classes and activities and such in the afternoon and evening, but I usually find that after the project group I'm so exhausted that I have about enough energy to walk home and plop down, and that's about it! However, despite my lack of energy when I get home, I do occasionally find myself with lots of spare time on my hands...and we only brought Jesse's computer with us, so when I've run out of things to do online and Jesse's using the computer, and I've grown tired of watching American cartoons in German on TV, and we've already played some card games together...occasionally I find myself a little bored.

So today Jesse and I wandered into a bookstore, and I found this to give myself some calm entertainment in the evenings!

Yes, I know, I came to Germany and bought a book in English...but after speaking German all day, my brain gets kind of tired and needs to relax a bit, you know? (so of course I bought a super thick british novel...of course...) But in my defense, I've never read Wuthering Heights but have had it highly recommended to me...and by the way, did you notice that I only paid 4 Euros for it?! That's only $5.66.  And it's hardback.  And brand new.  C'MON.  Don't you sitting there shaking your head at me, you know you'd do it too! Besides, I'm DEFINITELY going to need something to read on the flight home in 3 weeks! So there. 

And with that, I'm becoming a bit rambly and crazy and so I bid you adieu! If you read this far, I congratulate you.  If not, then I feel free you call you at worse a false friend, and at best someone with something better to do than to read my meanderings.  Ok I'm done now!