week three

Sorry about the break between posts. The past week has been quite busy, and every time I think about writing a new update I start to fall asleep. I also think I´m developing my first German cold... my throat has been scratchy, eyes watery, and nose stuffy for a couple days now. Thankfully the worst is during the night, so I´m not miserable in front of the children. However, it would help if I could get a few more hours of sleep each night!

Things are going well here. Can you believe that three weeks ago tomorrow I arrived here in Germany? In just one more week it will be a month, and then I will have completed more than 1/11th of my year! Maybe I´ll be back in Kansas again before I know it! :)

I had my second German class yesterday in Kiel. It is still fairly easy. We´re working on "Ich bin Kate," "Wie heißen Sie?", "Wie heißt du?", "Wer ist Nikolaj?", etc. It is comfortable, though, so I´m going to stick with it for now rather than skipping ahead just yet. Slow and steady works for me! It has been interesting in the class just to observe and get to know everybody. The teacher only speaks German to us, so we have people from all different nationalities and ages. We have several businessmen from Russia, women from Indonesia, people from Spain, Ghana, China, Greece. We are a very diverse room! A few other people speak English, and we chat during breaks. I am always uncomfortable when people ask why I came here from the U.S. just to learn German. Most people in that class are required to learn German for their job, citizenship, school, etc. My answers that I came to Germany "because I like it here...", "I love languages", "needed a challenge", "had a free year after college before I needed to start a career", etc., sound silly to actually say aloud. It would never satisfy people, or just amuse them. "Typical American..." :) I need to come up with something better to say! That, or just get used to the fact that it might be more common in the U.S. among the middle class to take time off to explore, try to find out more about yourself, or experience something new just for the sake of trying it. I am very fortunate to be in my position, in which I am now responsible only to myself, and am at a time in life when taking a year to live abroad has no serious consequences to my career, family, home, etc. It is strange to try to explain that to people without feeling like I am too flighty, naive, or that I take it for granted. A strange predicament, but sort of good for me to analyze my intentions and ambitions again.

I have a new train mate to and from class. Yanan Li from China is in my class, and apparently lives in Bordesholm so we always see each other at the station and in class. Might as well become travel buddies rather than awkwardly try to avoid each other all year! I´ll admit, it is a small comfort to have someone to walk with from the school to the station in Kiel after class ends at night. I don´t mind walking in the dark alone from the Bordesholm station home, but I´m not very familiar with Kiel yet, and am still out of my element! Anyways, it is an struggle sometimes to have a conversation with Yanan, but his English is good enough to get along. He´s from a city I´ve never heard of in China of 90 million people! Can you imagine? That is like... I can´t even comprehend it. I´m used to cities with 300,000 being big! It would be like squishing 300 Wichitas together into one city. I can tell we won´t be best friends or anything, but it is fun to learn these things about someone who grew up in a completely different culture than I can even comprehend. He also didn´t know what Legos were. Big communication barrier!! :P

The children are doing well. Today we colored dinosaurs and dragons in Paul Luis´ room, and played "store" in Emmi´s room. Emmi also had an adorable little friend, Gerda, over to play, which was fun. She brought a cake as a gift, and we had milk and cake together in the afternoon. The weather was decent enough that we could be have "tea" (even though I´m the only one who actually drank tea...) outside at the picnic table. It was a very long day - I stayed until after 6pm. But yesterday I had the morning off, and I think I will have most of the afternoon free tomorrow, so it will all balance out somehow.

Best be going for now. I need to go to bed and try to fight off this cold! I don´t want to be sick!
Take care, and keep in touch!
Kate