A collection of musings from the week

Well, today began with not being allowed to touch anything in the staffroom as last night it was broken into for the second time since I've been here. Nothing much ever seems to be taken though, so no-one really knows why... Cue another visit from the police forensics.

Anyway, because of this I was asked to start off Klasse 5's lesson with a game or 2 of hangman whilst their teacher sorted break-in related things. 'Kein Problem' I say smiling until setting off down the wrong corridor, remembering I don't have a key to unlock their classroom, and then pondering how you get 29 excitable ten year olds to shut up and listen to you.

Still, for the rest of lesson I was sent to a different room to work with groups of about 8 students (finally!) on some worksheet that had already been prepped and photocopied for me. Rooms and furniture around the house - deceivingly not as easy as you might think! Turns out I didn't know / couldn't remember the words for 'flower pot' 'stove' or 'wash basin' and much mystery still surrounds 'tub'. Time for charade style gesticulations and dodgy German!

They were my only two lessons of the day so I popped into town before going home - you know it's a bad sign when you find you've finished work so early that some of the shops aren't open yet!

Other 'achievements' of the week:
- getting ill, and then getting better again
- telling the deputy head and his Klasse 8 the wrong word order rule...
- spending over 6 hours in school one day of which only 45 minutes was a timetabled lesson...
- being told a game of 'dominoes' I had prepared for my other Klasse 5 was "witzig" aka. funny (?!) ...
- popping round to pay rent and coming back 2 and a half hours later with a basket of food / drink...
- experiencing the madness of the start of Karneval in the rain, with thousands of people in fancy dress on Remembrance day (the official start is 11:11 on 11th Nov)...
- noticing that Bergisch Gladbach already has it's Christmas tree up and has had for a couple of days...

Karneval - it's far from the best photo, but you can see how far away the stage was / how many people were in this bit alone.

Also after a day and a half of staring wishfully at my laptop mentally willing the internet to work again, I realised that a) it sadly wasn't going to fix itself without another visit to my landlord, and b) that as a generation we are far too dependant on it (or I am in any case!).

(Friday 12th November 2010)