Well, today I experienced my first day of school in Germany. All I can say is that I really REALLY need to learn German.
The building in genuinely Hogwarts. It has the spires, the many stories in height as well as the endless stairways and corridors. The only difference is that these ones don't move. Origionally, I was meant to be put in 10th grade, which I was a bit uneasy about as kids in that year level are a good 3 years younger than me. However, a very close family friend who is my age goes to the same school is in 11th grade, and after some convincing the school allowed me to tag along with her. We had two classes today. Two. History and French.
History was...nicht gut. I think if I could understand the language I could actually do the schoolwork, but because of my somewhat mountanous language barrier, I spent the lesson on Alina's translater, typing in words off her worksheet that I didn't recognise to find the meaning. In a way, I suppose this is good for me to do because while admittedly I am not doing the school work given, (I couldn't even tell you what the schoolwork IS) I AM learning the language slowly which is the aim of this whole exchange.
French, however is an entirely different story. I honestly spent two hours sitting in a class of students all speaking fluent french. I can't even speack GERMAN, let alone french. While the History teacher tolerated me, the French teacher did not as such. The only thing I understood the whole lesson was when Alina was told off by the teacher for ME drinking in class. She then went onto a rant about how nobody is allowed to eat or drink in her classroom, while everyone argued back (most keep their drinkbottles on the desk next to them, which was what gave me the impression it was acceptable to do so.) The teacher also told Alina that she doesn't want me in her classroom as I can't speak French - not complaining there. We are going to try and get it organised so that when Alina has French, I go to the library and do German work and learn the primary language I'm supposed to pick up on this exchange. School finished at around 12. And tomorrow I have one class. ONE. I'm finished for the day by 9.35. Not bad, eh? We also have a language course organised for me that I am starting in February. It is twice a week, and in March I am picking up yet another course as well that is attached to the other class - I end up doing about 3 hours of German each lesson instead of 1.5 hours. I don't mind the length or anything at the moment - I am just desperate to learn the language. However, I might not be so enthusiastic about the classes once they begin, we will see!
My body clock has still not reset itself. At 3 in the afternoon (3am NZ time), I am exhausted and can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and at 4am I am bouncing around the room and unable to close my eyes - not useful on your first day of school. At all.
However my four in the morning antics are slowly taking their toll on me, especially after our hour long walk through the country this afternoon with the dogs. The landscape is beautiful, almost rugged in a way and completely covered in a blanket of snow. You can see tracks along the field made by deeer, and we even managed to spot 3 of them off in the distance. And did I mention it was NEGATIVE 12 DEGREES TODAY. In New Zealand we were in Summer - getting up to 30 degrees even. It's going to take a while to adjust I think!
But it's dinner time soon, and then I m going to have to fight with myelf to stay awake until an appropriate time. Ah well, I'll get there!
Nuhnight!
Hey Emma,
ReplyDeletesounds interesting. But I can't understand why you have so few classes in Year 11.... is this normal High School (Gymnasium)?
My jetlag was brutal, too. It#s the complete opposite from going TO New Zealand, when all we needed was one night of sleep. Here it took me two weeks to just not wanna fall asleep at four in the afternoon. What day did you land in Germany?
Well, I hope you go on enjoying school. Maybe at the end of the year I can start conversing with you in German. :)
Hey there,
DeleteApparently at the moment we have such few classes because lots of teachers are sick (meaning their classes are cancelled) and a lot of teachers are preparing for exams next week. After next week, classes should resume to normal, where we finish at around 1.15pm - not bad, eh? And yes, it is a Gymnasium Schule.
I landed on Monday, and it is Thursady now - currently 8.24 pm and I've been mentally concentrating since 5pm to prevent myself nodding off. Really hoping that this whole jetlag thing will go away soon, waking up in the early hours of the morning three days in a row is not fun.
Had one class today, German, which I was fairly good at considering I can't speak German. Of course I couldn't actually say anything, or read the text but I had a good idea of what was happening throughout the whole class, and as I am quite good at the subject in New Zealand (English aka studying texts), I had a good idea of what we were doing.
And we will see about the conversing in German - lets hope I become even a little bit fluent!
Well then, only four days in Germany, it's no wonder you're still jet lagged.
DeleteYou should have at least a few days of holidays coming up in around one or two weeks. Depends on which state you're in.... I know Bavaria students have holidays from February 11th to 15th, but that varies throughout Germany. Honestly, I have no idea, where Lüneburg is....
Wow, you must have a lot of sick teachers.... Cause normally you have six classes a day, AT LEAST. IN Year 11 you should have at least two or three days with afternoon classes.
What other subjects are you taking?
If you wanna keep tabs on me, I've got a blog on here, too, now.
ReplyDeleteoutofsightkeepinmind.blogspot.de
And have a nice weekend (it's finally here, ey?)