Holiday Spirits

Well, I met up with some of the teachers from my school at the entrance to the Christmas market at 4:30 Thursday night -- uh, Thursday afternoon? It sounds too early to be night, but it was already dark enough that it felt much later. Thankfully the market is there now to light up the night. When I got there, the others were just having their first toast, so I bought myself a piping hot mug and joined in.

Of course most of us didn't end up going to teacher sport. Instead, we stayed on at the market until it closed, around 9, and then I caught a bus home to crash for the night. The dangers of seasonal drinks and friends who keep offering to buy those seasonal drinks, I suppose. I may have spiked one or two of my drinks with scotch, too -- what can I say: it takes the edge off the sweetness, thereby greatly improving the taste, but it doesn't increase stamina.

I really didn't get a chance to check out the market very much -- we set up shop right near the entrance, at a table directly in front of one of the wine stands (another good/bad move), so the only time I wandered deeper into the fray was to find a bratwurst for dinner, and by that time my appraisal skills were focused solely on distinguishing "food" from "not food." But I've got another 24 days or so to browse and peruse and report back on how wonderful it all is.

Last night was another great one. A friend from Campus Radio, Catherine, threw a party with her roommates. I met a bunch of cool people. At one point I was discussing stereotypes and youth culture with a French girl and a couple of German girls. Turns out nobody's all that different (hint: kids all over the world love to drink, no matter what the politicians try to do). Although it does seem that we Americans drink the most. They were all pretty shocked to hear about all the drinking games and drinks such as grain alcohol that are common in America.

One of Catherine's friends was a police officer in another city -- she seemed most American in her drinking habits, and was therefore a bad influence. She was uncomfortable about, but also gamely ignored, the blatant pot smoking that was occurring elsewhere in the house. I guess the laws on how much you can have are kind of spotty, but even if it's not much you're not really supposed to share it. You're also not allowed to buy or sell it; go figure. Maybe you're supposed to grow it on your windowsill.

We stayed up till who knows when, and random friends of another roommate didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon. It was unbelievable -- the house was a mess, and the music was blasting basically until the sun rose again. I felt like I was in college again. Technically I was and am, and so are they, but I meant American college; you know, the ones you see in the movies. I ended up crashing on the floor with some of Catherine's friends from home -- they were staying anyway since they're not from the area, and I stayed because I missed all of the buses. If all German parties are like that one, I'm not sure if I should be happy or scared. I don't expect to get involved in such shenanigans again at another friend's party tonight, though. I gotta keep that bass strong for tomorrow morning -- you know how it is when the gospel choir is counting on you.

Sample lyrics that I will be singing but not meaning tomorrow:
"Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I will pray;"
"It's me, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, standin' in the need of prayer;"
and, "Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water."

Wrap your head around those and maybe I'll cut a greatest hits album someday.

Interesting Weekend Ahead

I'm including tomorrow, since my weekends start on Thursday afternoon, of course. Just gotta get through a 5th grade class and two 11th grade classes, shouldn't be too bad. Tomorrow is a big day: the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) opens! Yeah, definitely something to get excited about -- the Christmas season in Germany is a splendid time. Sorry, now that I wear a scarf and read the Economist I feel obligated to refer to things as "smashing" and "splendid." I'm headed down to the market tomorrow evening with some of the teachers to get loaded on warm, alcoholic drinks such as Gluehwein. I don't know if there's an equivalent to Gluehwein to compare it to, and I don't actually like the taste that much, but it's hot and seasonal and alcoholic and comes in special glasses that you can keep, so it's worth it anyway. Not sure if I'll make it to teacher sports night tomorrow...the Weihnachtsmarkt is really in charge of my fate once it starts.

Both Friday and Saturday I'm invited to housewarming parties of friends involved with Campus Radio, so those should be cool too. Saturday I'll probably have to take it easy though...I have to sing on Sunday morning.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I sing in a gospel choir? Haaa. Started a couple months ago with Heather and Brittany. I get to sing the praises of a God that I don't really believe in, which undoubtedly makes Him chuckle. Hopefully he keeps laughing, because once the laughter stops, you know how He gets, with the floods and the smiting and the whole apple business. I guess I like to sing, and even though this whole gospel business isn't my thing, I find the practices endlessly amusing, so I've stuck with it. Plus, they always need guys to sing bass. On Sunday, for example, there are going to be two of us singing bass. There's something wrong with the image of me as one of two guys singing bass at church this Sunday, since I wasn't sure if I'd even stay in the choir, so that makes me laugh, too. At least we sing songs in English, so hopefully I don't forget too many lines.

So now that you know one of my many dirty little secrets, we can move on to a cute anecdote. One of my 5th graders saw me yesterday and asked if I was coming to her class that day, and when I told her no, I only come on Thursdays, she got all sad and asked, "that far away?" My heart grew three sizes (so now it's the size of four angels on the head of a pin). She also asked if I was going into the teacher's lounge, and when I said yes, her eyes got all wide and she breathed, "Wow."

That's why I sometimes like kids: they're so easily impressed. It's refreshing to awe someone by passing unrestricted into the teacher's lounge.

Speaking of easily impressing kids, my aunt Vicky told me that her daughter, Ani, who's also my goddaughter, is really excited to see me for Christmas, but that Ani instructed that I have to have a beard and mustache, because I look best that way. I don't think she has any way of knowing that. Maybe it's because her older sister always says I look better without facial hair. That's probably a good reason for her to request it. Either way, 'tis the season of giving, so I'm giving my red beard free rein as her Christmas gift. Wouldn't it be awesome if that was all I gave her for Christmas? "Here, Ani, unwrap my jaw!" While it's nice to go without shaving for a while, it's itchy and annoying. She'd better be awed at Christmas.

Mister Furriness for All

In all of the confusion, I nearly forgot the new addition to the Callaghan household back in Maine. Since Winston was Alena's replacement once she left, I guess that means Fabian is my replacement. I believe the evil eye in this picture represents his challenge to me: i.e., If you ever return, I will shred your non-furry bits and use your bed as a litter box.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into a cat's expression and he's really a sweet fellow. I can't risk it, though; I have too many non-furry bits.

Speaking of crazy animal expressions, the greatest one of all was finally captured on camera by my dad some weeks ago. This is the expression with which Winston greets you when you return home, and it is an exquisite combination of rage (that you could ever even entertain the notion of leaving him) and ecstasy (you're back, you're back, you're baaaaack). While it is not perfect, this is so far the best way -- other than to personally abandon and then return to him yourself --to see what is simply known as "That Face":

Want to Pet...But...Too...Pointy

These two little guys (gals? they all look the same to me) are new additions to the Spickschen Compound in Seeheim. Thorlef and Brigitte had two hedgehogs in their backyard/garden/whatever you call something that large with a pond. Apparently they eat annoyances such as slugs and are just generally awesome, as you can see.

But a couple of months ago we found the carcass of one. Brigitte wanted to get another one to keep the survivor company, and for some reason the animal shelter where they got their cat a few years ago had a hedgehog to offer. So we headed over there yesterday with the kids to score us some 'hog. When we got there, though, it turned out they had not one, not even two, but three hedgehogs available. Well, the more the spikier, so we returned home with triple the bounty.

We unpacked them deep in the backyard and let them figure out when to come out on their own. I suppose they'll be settling in to hibernate soon, but I'm sure once they wake up and rub the sleep out of their eyes they'll be very happy in their new home. On a related note, I hope Winston, my parents' dog, never meets one of these -- his favorite toy is a stuffed hedgehog. You can look, but, boy, you can't touch.

German Thanksgiving

So the Thanksgiving dinner my teacher certainly lived up to the expectations of such a day: great food, and way too much of it. There was more variety of food than I've ever had before too, because she incorporated almost all of the holiday's traditional American foods and then made some traditional German foods to go with it. I will now list and describe said foods, partly to impress upon you the scope and partly to try to recapture some of the deliciousness of Thanksgiving dinner, since I don't have leftovers to enjoy for weeks the way you do. The list, which hopefully isn't missing anything:

turkey - extremely uncommon in Germany, but she found a whole one and roasted it;
gravy - absolutely necessary to unite all the different foods on the plate, and it performed this duty admirably;

cranberry sauce - this berry used to be impossible to find in Germany, and it's still very rare, but she found them and made her own sauce, which was much better than the stuff that slides out of the can and plops onto the plate, still impossibly can-shaped;

sweet potatoes - also rare in Germany -- they're not my favorite, but mixed with other stuff they add an interesting flavor, plus you can't beat that nuclear-waste-orange color;

stuffing (American style) - just like the real thing -- I used to hate stuffing, but I've grown to enjoy it as long as it's mixed in with the rest;

stuffing (German style) - chestnuts and raisins -- not sure exactly how it's prepared but then again I guess I could say that about most foods on the list, and all that matters is that the end product was tasty;

brussel sprouts - somehow I had never, ever tried these before, since neither of my parents likes them -- all I'll say about this vegetable is that I want to thank my parents now for excluding it from my childhood diet;

red cabbage - a German staple of which I've grown extremely fond, and it went exceedingly well with the rest of the meal -- it helps that it's a moist food, which things like turkey and dumplings need to complement not only their tastes but also their textures;

potato dumplings - these are another German staple that are very good when combined with the right foods and sauces, such as the red cabbage I mentioned;

pumpkin soup - this seems like it would be an American thing since pumpkins are still somewhat rare in Germany, but the only two times I've had pumpkin soup have both been at American Thanksgiving dinners made in Germany -- this was a great batch of an unusual soup;

salad - this was actually less a salad and more a portion of strawberry/raspberry Jello (yes, the American kind) with small pieces of apple covering a few leaves of lettuce -- the only part I finished was the apple, but even though I don't usually like Jello, I found this stuff pretty good;

ice cream - this was the dessert that we mostly struggled in vain to eat, since we were so stuffed -- it was some kind of lemonade Italian ice I think, and surrounded by the cranberry sauce, which was a good combo that just wouldn't fit in my stomach.

So that was the meal, or at least all of what I can remember through a fog of gravy and red wine. There must be some downside to it all (oh yeah, the potential for massive weight gain and soaring cholesterol!). There was no football on TV, no parades, but since I never watch that crap on Thanksgiving anyway, this was an extremely satisfying substitute for being at home for the normal dinner with my family (don't worry, Mom, not even German bread can beat your fresh baked rolls). I hope all of your Thanksgivings were as nice, and think of me when you're running out of turkey sandwiches. I'll still be spooning pumpkin pie mix out of a can.

HTD

Don't worry -- even though most Germans refuse to recognize our gluttonous holiday and forced me to work today, I'm still getting a piece of the Thanksgiving experience. One of my teachers was able to bring in a couple of pumpkin pies today so the students in my two classes could try out this traditional dessert. I don't care for it, though the piece I tried wasn't bad. I wanted to bring in a pie or two myself, and a friend in my choir had her husband look for them at the military base in Wiesbaden, but the best we could do was a can of pumpkin pie mix. Germany doesn't have pre-made pie shells and I don't have an oven, but if I ever overcome those two obstacles, I'll try to make pumpkin pie anyway.

And Bettina, my mentor-teacher, is making Thanksgiving dinner tonight, which is very sweet of her. She's spent a lot of time in the US, so I'll get my fill of turkey and such. She's really getting the full Thanksgiving stress-effect as well: too much to do, too much food to try to prepare, and a bunch of people she invited have had to back out last minute because of illnesses. I told her and her class that this was the dark side of Thanksgiving that you don't see in the happy-go-lucky pictures and descriptions of the holiday. But anyway, I'm really looking forward to dinner soon.

In one of my classes today, I showed the students how to draw a hand-turkey, I told them the joke about April flowers, Mayflowers, and Pilgrims, and I showed them a couple of comics (this one and that one) relating to the holiday. As with all funny things, the more you have to analyze and dissect them to understand what they mean, the less funny they become. I expected this, but it's still unfortunate. Only my artificial laughs broke the tension, since they understood that and subsequently laughed too. Saying "Ha ha ha" with a straight face is a surprisingly powerful tool.

And when I found out another of my teachers had a 6th grade class today, I told her about hand-turkeys too, and that it was a fun activity for kids. So when I got back to the teacher's lounge at the end of the day, she showed me a stack of papers: the hand-turkeys her class had drawn and colored. Those were great. My favorite was the turkey with dark shades and a fat gold chain around his neck, including a piece that said "HTD." I asked her what it meant: "Happy Turkey Day," a message I gladly pass along to you.

Mmm...Free Music

I recently found and joined, for a nominal yearly fee, the city library. Of course the University of Mainz has a main library and many other subject-specific libraries. But I haven't spent much time exploring those, they're a bit imposing, and I know there are supposed to be some restrictions on what you can take out. Also, the University libraries are at least 15 minutes farther out of my way than the city library. Aside from these perks though, the most alluring thing about the city library is its fairly large CD collection.

This will be a good way to bulk up my music library, especially with the inclusion of German music. I can take up to 25 things out at once -- I settled for a mere 10 CDs my first time. Let's just say that the nominal yearly fee has already paid for itself. I'm exactly halfway through importing the CDs to iTunes. In addition to a few German rap CDs, not all of which I've listened to yet, I got some good English music, such as The Clinic, Cake, The Beta Band, Afu-Ra, and a couple from The Cure. You really can't go wrong with a free CD collection unless it's comprised entirely of Celine Dion and country music.

Along with the music, I am also newly enjoying my subscription to The Economist, which started as an early Christmas gift from the 'rents (thanks guys!). I can already feel myself getting smarter and more worldly as a result. In case you've never felt that and are wondering, it feels like walking through rain made of honey. Of course, for a weekly magazine, the thing has got to have as many words as the Bible. It takes forever to read, and a lot of the financial and business stuff is extremely foreign to me -- it's really like homework sometimes, albeit interesting homework. I keep it in my backpack or jacket pocket so I always have it with me, and I whip it out (just the magazine) whenever I'm waiting for the bus, riding the bus, on break at school...well, really anytime I have a few minutes that aren't being used for something else. Otherwise I will never get through it and will eventually end up buried under a pile of unread Economists.

Finally, I had my weekly Ultimate Frisbee practice tonight, which was even more fun than usual because we spent practically the whole time playing 5-on-5. It took them a couple of practices, but my teammates are now beginning to grasp the true extent of my tallness. They suddenly realized tonight how often they're able to just toss up a Hail Mary in the general direction of the end zone and depend on me to reach high over the heads of mere mortals in order to make the catch. The German equivalent of "Just go long" became the team "strategy." Apparently trying to make things even tougher on themselves, the opposing team kept having the shortest girl try to mark me, which was impossible. But then again if I had to mark her she'd run circles around me so it can go both ways.

Anyway, it's been Thanksgiving here for the past hour, and so far I'm thankful that my first class isn't until 10:40. Enjoy your vacation time, slackers; I only get Fridays off, so I'll be slogging through my full three hour workday tomorrow.

Don't Bring Me Down

First, it's always nice to wake up and check the sports pages online and find out that the Patriots keep on rollin'. What's even funnier to see is that the Miami Dolphins keep on gettin' rolled. The '72 Dolphins are the only team in football ever to have a perfect season, but while the Patriots keep their sights on tying that record, the '07 Dolphins "are on their way to setting another perfect record - a season unblemished by wins," as it was hilariously stated by someone in a www.fark.com article description. Yes, while the Pats are 10-0, the Dolphins are 0-10. This is truly a bounteous season.

Second, the kids in my 6th grade class toyed with my emotions today. Well, not all of them, but some of them -- okay, one kid in particular. I saw the students as I was leaving school; they were waiting for their bus to the swimming pool. They got me to admit that I speak German, though they didn't really have to twist my arm. It's good if they try to speak English with me, but I don't really mind admitting that I speak German either. Honestly, I always feel a little pride when they realize it.

But I had barely gotten to enjoy my pride, and already one of the kids had decided that I didn't speak the language very well. It didn't seem hostile or teasing, so it's quite possible he just assumed my hesitance to start speaking German with them was because I was unsure of my ability. He may have been trying to shelter me from the onslaught of German I was about to face from his classmates when they heard about it. Gee, aren't children helpful? Whatever his intentions, picture it: some more of the kids would ask me if I could speak German, and before I had a chance to prove myself he would run to my aid with "Yeah, but not very well!"

He certainly deflated the balloons in my pride parade.

On the other hand, the little girls all love me still. Does that count for anything?

Kentucky Fried Nonsense

This article, "Legislators Hear Global Warming Disputed," well...frankly, words escape me. But I'll try to recapture the words necessary to discuss the sheer absurdity of the events describe in said article. In a very brief summary, there was a "hearing" organized by a Kentucky Democrat who apparently lives in Big Coal's pocket. I say "hearing" because only two panelists were invited to speak, both of which were hand-picked by this Democ-rat to explain why Global Warming is baloney. Even worse, this Democrat, Jim Gooch (how can you vote for a man whose name clearly defies any classification as intelligent?)...well, I'm going to cite passages from the article so you can just see for yourself, and hopefully you'll see that you should read the entire thing. Here are a very telling few paragraphs:

"Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, a longtime ally of the coal industry, said he purposefully did not invite anyone who believes in global warming to testify.

'You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times,' said Gooch, whose post makes him the House Democrats' chief environmental strategist. 'We hear it every day from the news media, from the colleges, from Hollywood.'

Neither of Gooch's invited panelists was a scientist."

Wow, yes, Gooch, you're absolutely right: hearing about problems is a serious annoyance. Especially from those stupid scientists -- what have they ever done for us anyway? Instead, let's find some corporate sponsored goons to tell us lies. Everyone trusts corporate sponsored goons. Don't you feel better already? It's fun to play pretend, whether it's pretending WMDs do exist or pretending Global Warming doesn't.

Seriously, can't we just keep the scientists out of this? They're such buzzkills, and they still haven't invented a pill that can make Jim Gooch attractive to the opposite sex (see the picture in the article, please), so why would they be included?

"'It really wasn't my intention to get into so much science today,' Gooch replied."

Plus, don't even jump to the conclusion that this is some kind of purposely one-sided defense of Big Coal companies for Jim Gooch's personal gain, or that Jim Gooch really hates scientists, because that is far from the truth:

"'Well, I mean, where are we going to get scientists?' Gooch asked. 'We're limited here in Kentucky to what we can do. I don't know how we'd necessarily get scientists to come here.'"

Clearly, the truth is that Kentucky is devoid of scientists. And are you surprised by that? I didn't think so. I suggest an emergency air drop of scientists to help Kentucky through this rough period in its development as a democratic nation. Or at least some Intelligent Design pamphlets, anything's better than their current situation.

But seriously, I find the anti-Global Warming movement incredible mostly because I haven't heard a single good argument as to why we should act as if Global Warming doesn't exist. Even if Global Warming is baloney, it's worth the lie if it gets us to develop clean, renewable energy and to help the rest of the world deal with crises of environment, too...or at least, I used to think that way. Until my eyes were opened by one of Jim Gooch's "experts":

"Similarly, Taylor said most scientists don't believe in global warming. Not that warming is bad, he said. Hotter weather means more vegetation and crops and more diversity of wildlife, as in the tropical rain forests, he said. He distributed a report that urged Americans to burn more coal, oil and natural gas so 'our children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed.'"

Do you understand now why this article robbed me of speech? This is one of the most ludicrous yet insidious advertisements for evil since somebody started telling Arab men, "Yup, that's all there is to it, just run into the food court, call for a group hug, press this button, and then you'll spend the rest of eternity high-fiving Allah while virgins pleasure you." Not only are these people trying to deny that Global Warming exists, they're trying at the same time to convince us that we need to burn MORE fossil fuels. Didn't the smoking industry try this a few decades ago? I mean, it sounds too stupid to work, but somebody will obviously buy into it. Somebody always buys into it.

The Callahan

I'm involved with Campus Radio at the University of Mainz. They do one 1-hour radio show per week, during which they have various segments, including interviews, music, campus happenings, etc., but so far my only contribution has been gracing them with my presence at the weekly meetings to discuss the upcoming show. I mostly just listen attentively, stifle my yawns (not always successfully) and try to figure out the appropriate times to furrow my brow and nod approvingly. Just as I'm improving my "Attaboy!" expression at school, I'm also refining the "I think I know what's going on but please don't make me prove it" look when trying to follow German conversations and discussions happening around me. I spend way too much time refining that look in my life.

I'm nervous about volunteering for any assignments because of the language barrier. I don't think it would be wise to include me in interviews or really anything where German is required -- I could probably get by, but it wouldn't really help the image of professionalism and trustworthiness that I think they try to cultivate. If they ever need someone to spell "exorbitant," though, I'm there. Anyway, there's also a music discussion once a week now which I also attend, during which we pop in the new cds we've received from various labels and try to decide what songs to play on the next show. I can handle that since music is an international language. And by "international language" I of course mean English, since that's what most of it is.

So today there wasn't a big selection of new music to check out, but on one of the sampler discs there was a song by a Swedish band called The Callahan. It's a shame they left out the "g," but since they're Swedish I can cut them a little slack (Sweden lost the letter "g" in a bet to Norway a few years ago). Plus, after after hearing the song I wasn't so upset, considering that it wasn't very good. Best that they didn't sully the Callaghan name. If anybody's going to give Callaghans a bad name, I fully expect it to be me, probably involving a wet wipe, a stick of dynamite, a vat of engine oil, a 20 pound turkey, and a lot of bad decisions. I hope your Thanksgiving goes well, though.

Tempting Fate

I shouldn't have written about hurting my fingers, because that was just an invitation for the fates to hurt my fingers some more, which happened tonight. The same finger that I hurt playing basketball 2 weeks ago started to hurt again while I was playing volleyball with a bunch of the teachers, and one of my thumbs was added to the mix too. But then again, every other part of my body hurts after an ultimate frisbee workout last night and multiple hours of sports with the teachers tonight, so I hardly notice the pain in my fingers. That's good...right?

Those gym teachers in Germany really know how to train. I mean, every Thursday night we warm up and do various stretching and exercises, then we play three different sports, each for about an hour. I'm usually dead after the first round of exercising. It's really quite embarrassing to be the youngest guy out there, a former athlete, and yet feel like I'm about to pass out from exhaustion the whole time. My only consolation is that, since most of them are gym teachers, there's a reason they've kept in some kind of shape and are pretty versatile when it comes to all the different sports. I had a good reason for getting out of shape my last year of college: exercising cut into my drinking time. Anyway, getting back into the realm of things I know, we had some beer at the end of the night, and that helped to ease the pain. So does the prospect of falling into bed in a few minutes and not having any school tomorrow.

Before I go, you should check out this article, about "melody roads" in Japan which play music when you drive over them. My initial reaction: I really hope one of them will play "Jive Talkin'" by the Bee Gees -- since the inspiration for the beat of that song came when the group was driving over some bridge in Miami and heard the thudding of the car going over the gaps in the road, it would be utterly appropriate. Plus "Jive Talkin'" is a sweet song. Talkin' 'bout jive, turkey.

My second reaction: that's gonna get annoying reeeeally quickly unless you can come up with an alternate route to work. Maybe this will finally be the catalyst that sparks Japan's love affair with the off-road vehicle.

Ouch

First quick but important thing: check out this program Free Rice. It's a multiple choice vocabulary game for a good cause, so you can feel good about learning. Every time you get a word right, 10 grains of rice are donated through the UN to people who need it. All of the info is on the site and it's quite simple to just check it out, so I'm not gonna paraphrase anymore. But seriously, it's really interesting stuff.

On to the schadenfreude: I've hurt my fingers a couple times recently. A couple weeks ago I jammed one playing basketball, which reminded me of just one of the many reasons I don't like basketball. But I don't usually have a problem with ghost stories. I was reading one to my 6th grade class yesterday, and, I mean, it obviously wasn't scary and we had to go through it pretty closely before they actually understood all of what was going on.

But at one point the ghost "taps" at the window or door or something, and I tried to spice that part up a little bit. In trying to make the tapping louder and louder, I may have gone too far. The kids weren't scared by the story, but they definitely gasped when they heard how hard I was tapping on the underside of that table. I soldiered on without missing a beat so they wouldn't catch the scent of weakness and devour me, but I bruised one of my knuckles pretty badly. What a way to catch an injury.

Damn that ghost, Sir Henry, if that was his real name. Why couldn't he have just kicked a table over or something? I bet I can do that without hurting myself.... Of course, to tie my injuries together nicely, Sir Henry's problem was that he was missing his head. Since he was the sissiest ghost ever, the little girls in the story agreed to help him look for it -- and when they thought they had found it, they woke up, and were holding a basketball instead. I'm being haunted by basketball.

Weekend Update

Brittany and I went to Trier and Luxembourg on Friday and Saturday. We spent the day in Trier before heading to Luxembourg and spending the night in a hostel. I'll post some pics so you can check those out and basically skip the trip yourself in the future. I mean, they were both nice, and would be fine to visit for a day, but especially Luxembourg should be avoided by anyone on a budget who wants to spend some time enjoying himself. The cheapest restaurant the hostel could recommend was an Italian place with meals for around 20 Euros. That's brutal. We ate at the hostel instead. Oh well, the cold, rainy weather didn't help either -- my teacher told me it's much nicer to go in the summer with all of the street vendors and such. On the plus side, the hostel was quite nice, and I did have a great sleep followed by a good breakfast.

So we came home earlier than planned on Saturday, which gave me the incentive to meet up with Ben, Michaela, and Katherine in Frankfurt that night. I relied heavily on my flask of Scotch to combat my nagging cold, and followed that up by sharing in a giant pot of Apfelwein with the others. Well, "pot" is not the right word here, it was classier and bigger than a pot, but my brain is fried right now from the continued cold and from watching too many episodes in a row of Street Fighter II V on YouTube. It's surprisingly good for a 1996 cartoon based on a video game -- definitely better than the live-action movie was.

But I digress...once we trudged through the rain back to the hotel Saturday night, I wrangled my way into bed with two girls. Yeah, the two mattresses were pushed up against each other so I got to sleep in the crack while Ben was stuck on the floor. Apparently I'm a better negotiator when I have a belly full of Apfelwein. We had a nice brunch on Sunday, while a strange/funny Italian guy waited on us. Yup, his name was Luigi, and he used to be a professional soccer player and a professional opera singer, and he has a book coming out soon with an amusing name that I have forgotten. He showed us all kinds of pictures and letters and stuff and we had to wonder why he was waiting tables at a somewhat fancy cafe now. I guess I could write to him and ask, since he gave us his card and asked us to write.

This post was really just an excuse to mention that Jeff and I are officially going to Milan and Verona for New Year's though. I would have felt bad if that were all I wrote.

Useless

Recently I've been trying to keep up with "news" more than in the past (like father like son?). Yeah, I know, a pretty distasteful prospect. But as an ambassador to a foreign land, I get asked a lot of questions about a lot of stuff and it sucks to never have a better answer than "Look over there!" followed by a cowardly retreat (it also sucks to refer to stuff as "stuff" all the time). Hence the quest for knowledge.

But it's so hard to get any real information. Here's an example of an opinion piece on global warming: http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/comments_about_global_warming/?ic
Now, this was written by the founder of The Weather Channel. Granted, it's just a blog post and therefore understood to be very opinionated, but that doesn't mean it can't be useful. But it's not. Why?

"I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change."

I don't care if you're the founder of The Weather Channel or the founder of the Hair Club for Men. Hearing that you've personally "read dozens of scientific papers" and so on and so forth doesn't help anybody else believe what you're saying. I'm not going to take what you say based on faith, just as nobody else should. He doesn't even mention any specifics, let alone point me to them so I can come to the same conclusions as him. Until you link me to some of these studies, I can safely assume that you're making this up, which sounds like par for the course for a weatherman anyway.

Here's an example of an in-depth article which lays out ways of analyzing the issue of global warming so that a real debate can be had: http://www.slate.com/id/2176156/pagenum/2/
This Slate writer/economist goes into great detail about how whether or not you agree with Al Gore, Al Gore has done little more than bring up the issue of global warming -- he hasn't really given people the proper information about it to get a debate going. This author then goes about trying to correct that mistake.

He concludes by bringing up The Stern Report, a review of the economics of global warming done in Britain. According to him, the Stern Report basically concludes what Al Gore concludes, but only after going into much greater depth than Al Gore does. Of course, one thing I still have a problem with is that he neglects to link to the Stern Report in his article, but at least he cited it so someone can check it out for himself.

This is in no way the defining essay on the state of modern news, but it's an introduction to what I find most frustrating in trying to educate myself: useless articles with no apparent basis in fact. Sure, my example of a bad article was a personal blog post, but isn't that the trend anyway? And "mainstream" news is rarely better; I'm not going to go into it right now, but how often do you hear any real science in an article about global warming? It's just about whether Bush is going to call Gore to congratulate him on his Nobel Prize or not. Or think about how often we hear about the "latest polls" during the election race. Who cares? That's not responsible reporting -- I'm not trying to pick my candidate based on how many other uninformed people told you they're picking that person. I guess it's a pipe dream to think I'll get more information about the candidates, though, since giving out information usually just hurts them in the polls anyway.

Anyway, this post has been way too serious and pseudo-intellectual, and since I'm sick and poorly educated, now me brain hurt, and as a direct result your brain is bound to hurt too. So for some serious laughs check out www.fark.com, which is not your average news aggregate site. And on the plus side, it also offers a scathing look at the sloppy condition of your average media today. Plus sometimes boobies! (You can usually blame Fox News for those.)

Sub-par Sub

The substitute teacher system in Germany is a lot different from the one in America -- in fact, there are no special "substitute teachers." When a teacher is absent, other teachers at the school have to fill in if they have coinciding periods free. Every day, all of the teachers have to check a list to see if they've been assigned to fill in anywhere.

It's a painful system. Teachers check the daily list and find out hours or minutes before they're supposed to go into a strange classroom and try to teach the kids something, anything, whatever they can come up with, instead of having a free hour. It's like getting kicked in the crotch by your own foot. Don't ask me how -- I mean, don't ask me how it's like that, or how you'd get kicked in the crotch by your own foot. Just, no further questions.

My first experience with this system was a while ago, when one of my teachers was out for the day. On Tuesdays I have two classes with her. One of them was fine, since Chris, a teacher-in-training (I'm gonna call him a TIT from now on...tee hee), is also in that class and he had a lesson prepared. I worked my usual magic, which involves sitting back and nodding solemnly while someone else takes care of things. I'm really perfecting my "Attaboy!" face while learning to hide or at least soften my "Wow, are you sure you wanted to say that?" expression.

But for the second class, I waited, and waited, all while the chaos of 33 8th graders flowed around me, and...nobody came. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only three weeks in reality, I decided I'd better do something with the class before they toppled my empire. Let me warn you: it's tough to assert your authority over these kids after waiting like 10 or 15 minutes while they acted like you didn't exist. I'm not sure I would have survived if I wasn't so tall -- it's like my only dominant trait.

Eventually I got them somewhat settled and we talked about ourselves in English. Finally, as they were telling me their names, hobbies, and credit card PIN numbers (what? I don't get paid enough, get off my case), the sub finally showed up. Instead of teaching them geography, he suggested they write down what they had been telling me before he came, since that allowed us to avoid any real work. I made it out alive, but not unscarred.

Afterwards, Frau Bluemel, the teacher who looks after me and ensures that everything is going well, told me that I'm not actually supposed to go to the class if the teacher is absent. That is quite a relief.

Or it was a relief, until today, when the same teacher from before was missing again. I didn't need to go to the first class anyway since the Chris the TIT had that under control, but while I was relaxing during the second class, a teacher I've never seen before found me and told me that I was supposed to be subbing for the 8th grade class. Oh boy -- that's exactly what I wanted to hear 10 minutes into a class I had already written off.

Yeah, it turns out my name (or at least three apparently important letters of my name, part of the reason I missed it...CAL means less to me than my full name, thanks.) was on the list as the sub for this particular class. Well, I'm not supposed to do it, but another TIT whom I haven't met before was there too and she said she could help. That's fine...except for the 10 minutes during which she has to leave to take a phone call.

Oh well -- we got in there and started playing a ghetto version of Bingo where the kids write down 15 numbers from 1-100 and the TIT calls out random numbers. The order doesn't matter in this game. There are no prizes. There is nothing about this game that makes it worth playing except for the most important factor, which is that it gets the kids doing something other than lighting fires and heaving bricks. It worked okay, until she left and the kids started clamoring for a different game again. Whatever. I held things together until the TIT got back and moved on to something else for the last couple of minutes.

So Frau Bluemel's gonna talk to the guy who makes the sub lists and tell him once again not to assign me as a sub. It's what's best for the kids' education and for my pride.

Got To Be Tha Sure-Shot

So far, I suck at being a teacher. I've got the assistant part down fine, but when it comes time to step up to the plate everyone can see that I'm still the bat boy. Even my lesson last week on Halloween, the coolest holiday since Whacking Day, felt kind of off. I also had trouble keeping a conversation about Irish immigrants going. I tried to engage in a historically accurate role playing activity, but the kids really couldn't hold their alcohol.

And today the 7th graders started to learn about about sports in their English class. Since all they learn is British English, all they're gonna know is cricket and tea-drinking. Well, not if I have anything to say about it. So I took it upon myself to introduce them to America's pastime, and I don't mean deep-frying.

Proudly sporting my Red Sox -- Youkilis t-shirt and equipped with a homemade fill-in-the-blanks worksheet, I entered the fray. I boldly attempted to explain the rules of this complex sport, lobbing terms at them and sketching shapes on the board. All this while trying not to rely on the one kid in the class who lived in America for like the past 5 years -- of course he's gonna raise his hand, so it's up to me to shamelessly ignore his flailing appendage.

After covering the intricacies of the pitcher-catcher-batter love triangle (the pitcher pitches to the catcher, who catches, while the batter tries to bat using his bat), I finally unleashed them upon the worksheet. And following my teacher's shrewd advice, I made the American-versed whizkid come up with the German translations of the key words while he waited for the others to finish. That's no intentional walk; that's hit by piatch, biatch.

After that it was just a matter of cleaning up -- I had the kids read through the sentences with the answers in place, and then they got to hear and write down the German translations from that kid. The bell rang, and ya know, I feel like I finally hit one out of the park. Of the lessons I've prepared on my own, this is the first one that seemed to go smoothly. In your face, Yankees. Tune in next time, when I dare to demonstrate: if things go well with props and pics, maybe I can farm this class and produce the next Jacoby Ellsbury. Plus I'm gonna introduce them to American football, courtesy of an arm-bar to the face followed by a pelvis-intensive victory dance.

I'm goin' to Disney World!

Live and Let Liver

The Halloween party on Wednesday was fun -- I stayed out until past 5 AM and then magically found my way home. I honestly had no idea where I was, so I picked a direction and walked until I saw something I recognized, which fortunately happened quickly and turned out to be about as close to home as I could have hoped. I guess my drunk GPS kicked in. It still took me half an hour, but I'm used to those walks by now. If I hadn't guessed correctly which direction to walk, I could have ended up in France, where French punks might have beaten me with a baguette. Or worse: there's a little "French" bakery chain in Germany called Cro-bag. I think it's supposed to be a mix of croissant and baguette, but it makes me think of cro-mags, ho-bags, and crowbars, all at the same time, none of which I'd want to eat or get attacked by.

Thursday I played some sports with a bunch of the teachers. We played soccer, which was cool since we used Indoor Soccer rules, and I wasn't the worst one there, which is surprising since this is Europe after all. But then we played basketball, and of course I jammed my finger at one point, and it's only now starting to hurt less. Basketball sucks. I had to skip out on volleyball afterwards, which is probably okay since I was completely spent at that point anyway.

On Friday the students had a 4 day weekend, so the teachers spent the morning in different seminars followed by a trip to Frankfurt for the rest of the day. I wouldn't normally want to be in school on a Friday, especially not at 8:30 AM, but I was in the Cooperative Games seminar so we just got to play a bunch of different team-building games and talk about how they could be used in the classroom.

Frankfurt was interesting -- I went on a tour of the Goethe House, most of which I didn't understand but that's okay. After a shopping trip which confirmed that, yes, German women are also from Venus, we all had dinner at a cool, typical Frankfurt restaurant. I mean, this place really prided itself on being typical Frankfurt. So of course I tried what someone told me was typical Frankfurt food: Leberknoedeln. This is what the side-splittingly hilarious pun in the title of this post refers to, because Leberknoedeln are some kind of dumplings made out of liver. Sounds gross, and if you don't like liver or liverwurst or anything, then it would indeed be gross. I actually enjoyed it, especially with the generous portions of mashed potatoes and sauerkraut involved. Together with some Apfelwein (apple wine) and half a schnitzel from another teacher who couldn't finish hers, I really distended my stomach with typical Frankfurt food that evening.