Praise

I had my last (assuming I passed) German exam on Saturday. It is called the "Deutsche Sprachpruefung fuer den Hochschulgang auslaendischer Studienbewerber" I feel as though I just narrowly survived a long battle. I should get the results in about two weeks, but I think that it went OK.

I've also got a new job. From 6 or 7AM until 9AM Monday through Friday I clean a posh store on Neumarkt (a pair of jeans runs 500 Euro). This will bring in a much needed 400 Euro per month. Although I do not know how long I will stay there, I am really happy to have the job!

Innes Ford was also able to get a 400Euro per month position with her old company. Also a good thing.

Class of '06

Here is a pic of my Oberstufe (Advanced German) class at the Volkshochschule. There are consistently more women than men learning German here. My guess is that this is because the course participants are mostly lower income and their husbands must work during the day when the classes are available, or they are mothers and their children are in school during this time.

Prayer Request

I am taking a couple of important exams this month in order to gain acceptance to the University here. Please pray that I will learn all that I need to pass and that I can be confident on the test days.

November 17: Zertifikat Deutsch-Reading Comprehension, Listening Skills, and Written Communication
November 23: Zertifikat Deutsch-Oral Exam
November 30: Zentral Mittelstufenprüfung-Reading Comprehension, Listening Skills, and Written
December 3: Zentral Mittelstufenprüfung-Oral Exam

Would you like a side of Mandarin with that?

In 8 weeks I will be taking a language exam in order to gain enterance to the University here. Although I am growing to really enjoy German, after studying it every day for a year I am looking forward to the time when I can start on a new language. Following are some stats I was looking at to whet my appetite.

Most Widely Spoken Languages
if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following list: (number of speakers; number of countries where it's spoken)
1. Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion; 5)
2. English (480 million; 115)
3. Spanish (320 million; 20)
4. Russian (285 million; 16)
5. French (265 million; 35)
6. Hindi/Urdu (250 million; 2)
7. Arabic (221 million; 24)
8. Portuguese (188 million; 5)
9. Bengali (185 million; 1)
10. Japanese (133 million; 1)
11. German (109 million; 9)

After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used, number of major fields using the language internationally, economic power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige), Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:(number of points given in parentheses)
1. English (37)
2. French (23)
3. Spanish (20)
4. Russian (16)
5. Arabic (14)
6. Chinese (13)
7. German (12)
8. Japanese (10)
9. Portuguese (10)
10. Hindi/Urdu (9)

(taken from http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm)

Illegal Tour Guide

For our last day of Mittelstufe 2 (German Class) we journeyed through the city together. You can see one of the highlights here. It is a picture of us at a Jewish Ritual Bath from the Middle ages. Another high point was a city official coming over to scold me for giving ''an official tour'' without the proper license. Apparently he thought that because I was explaining the Cathedral to a clearly international group, I must be a tour operator!

Mark Twain on German

I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a "unique"; and wanted to add it to his museum.

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. . . it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is. . .when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following EXCEPTIONS." He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience. . .

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:
"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
"Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.
"Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?
Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera."

Mark Twain

Lazy Days :)

Mood: pleasant (I've been playing card games and Playdough store with Pia all morning. How could I not be happy with that!?)
What I'm Reading: Romans by Paul; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Haddon

Yesterday I ''graduated'' to Mittlestufe 2 (after M3 I'll take a test to show that my German is good enough to study in a German University). For the next three weeks school is in recess. When we return, I'll continue to study with many of my current classmates through the summer.

This week has been especially full. Among other things, I've had to work out a banking problem (requiring a total of 7 trips to various banks, none of which had English speaking personnel), visit the visa office, talk with my telephone provider, re-register for utilities, visit my housing company and go to 2 birthday parties. I expect that my break will be equally full. I've been invited to go with the Bonnets to the North Sea where they have relatives. Immediately following this, I'll be in Budapest for a week with friends from church. There may also be a visit from Noel, a trip to an amusement park for Johanna's birthday, and a significant amount of time sprucing up my apartment squeezed somewhere in there.

Myself, Hannah, KoKo, Takuya, Sandra, and Yeurong at our end-of-semester party.

Poking Fun

I have been told the following joke by many internationals.

Q: What do you call a person who speaks 3 languages?
A: Tri-lingual

Q: What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages?
A: Bi-lingual

Q: What do you call a person who speaks 1 language?
A: American

I don't think the sentiment is exactly accurate, but it is still funny. Here is a Funny Video about the need to learn foreign languages. Here is another good one.

Festive

Mood: still tired
What I'm Reading: German grammar books

My German class is taking a part of each day this week for people to make presentations about holidays in their countries. Yesterday I talked about Halloween (not my choice) and passed out lots of candy and showed cute pictures of the Brett children and I in costumes. Among the presenters today was a group from Russia. They spoke about Maslyanitsa meant to welcome in the Spring (and since Christian times, to prepare for Lent). It involves all of the men fighting one another in one huge brawl, lots of food and vodka, bear wrestling, and fireworks. They brought Russian cakes, caviar, some sort of pastry filled with raw fish, and pancakes with honey.

Now I'm babysitting at the Bonnets. They have a guest staying for the week. He decided to stay home tonight, so we had a chance to talk about concepts of friendship and openness in German and American cultures for the past couple of hours. Good stuff.

New Classmates

Mood: joyful
What I'm Reading: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by Rowling
Stage Notes: The last of our house church guests just trickled out (5 1/2 hours after we began). We had several new people join us, and worship was especially satisfying tonight. Ahh. . .



Above are some of my classmates enjoying Chinese on Neumarkt.

Movie Night

Stage Notes: at the Bonnets watching ''Pirates of the Carribean'' with the House Chruch crew and 4 guests that came to watch a movie with us tonight
What I'm Reading: The Challenge of Missions by Oswald Smith

It has been a good, although really busy kind of a week. I've enjoyed getting to know my new classmates and I like my new German teacher a lot. I think that I may need to take an official test called the ''German Certificate'' in order to start taking German classes at the University in March. I began preparing for this possibility this week and hope that I will be able to find the time to do a respectable job. Well, back to the movie. . .

Eintopf (~One Pot Soup)

Mood: studious
Stage notes: Neumarkt (just finished shopping with a new aquaintance from school)

In my new class there are people from the following twelve nations: Spain (2), Thailand, Maldovia, Russia (2), Ukraine (2), Belgium, Congo, Iran, China, Serbia, Peru (2), and of course the good 'ol USA. Among them are students, house wives, a folk singer, microbiologist, semi-professional rollerskater, travel agent, retirement home worker, mechanical engineer, sports clothing retailer, and an unemployed millionaire-wannabe. It is a wonderful world that allows me to be a member of such a motley crew.

Update: A girl from Morocco joined us today :). (Thursday, Jan. 26)

New Roommates

Mood: ganz gut
What I'm reading: My friend Yi's blog

I embarked upon a new German course this week. I think that I will enjoy my new teacher's style better than my last professor. Also, at least for the moment, my new class is much smaller than my previous one. The only problem is that I seem to perpetually be in a class that is somewhat higher in level than I should rightly be at. The average time that my current classmates have been in Germany is somewhere around 3 years. Although they are only slightly better than me in their mastery of German grammar (because they have not had the opportunity to formally learn it), their vocabulary far surpasses mine. The result is that I always feel a couple of steps behind everyone else.

Yesterday my friend Armin helped me make improvements to my apartment. He lowered my kitchen cabinets so that I do not have to jump so high when I want to retrieve a glass, installed a light in my foyer, and lowered my bike seat. It's nice to feel like I'm making some progress in the continual battle to make my apartment feel homey.

The only big problem remaining is my 3 new roommates. Their names are Larry, Curly, and Moe and they are invading my personal space more every day. You can see a pic of Curly below.

Socken und Sprechen

Mood: Pretty in Pink
Stage notes: pulled my shoulder helping someone move, it hurts somethin' fierce

My washing machine is routinely broken, and I have been anxiously anticipating its repair. It was finally working yesterday, so with joy, I quickly ran down before class to start a load. A wash-cycle takes about 2 hours here. Because I do not have a dryer, washing and drying clothing consumes the entire day. Every inch of my room is decorated with a rainbow of wet clothing. Laundry day requires quite a bit of planning on my part. If I want to invite someone over to my apartment, I prefer to not have my underwear hanging on the windowsill!

So, I was finally able to do laundry. My joy knew no bounds. Only one small problem. . .someone left an innocuous red sock in the machine. In my haste I did not see it. Now, all of my clothing is pink. Thankfully the machines here are smaller so it is not possible to do all of your laundry at once. Because of this at least some of my things escaped the blood bath.

On a more positive note, a friend invited me to dinner with an old colleague of hers. 5 of us enjoyed an excellent meal together. I definitely need to get the recipes for what we ate. The conversation was even better. After warming up with politics, the tide turned to religion. I was asked to share how I became a Christian and why I believed that the Bible was true. This is the first time that I have had to do this entirely in German (in depth), so it was quite a challenge. Our hostess said that she would try to come to English Conversation tonight, and I am looking forward to being able to speak with her in my native tongue.

Babysitting

Mood: sporty
Stage notes: watching the Bonnet girls color

Kindersport rules! This morning I am watching the Bonnet girls while Heike is at school with Jonathan. The kids and I walked to a local gym where equipment was set up for kids to play with. They had balance beams, spring boards, mounts, and ''slides'' made from long benches attached to the wall. I think that I did twice as much running around as the girls did, because this week there was a lot of potential for dangerous falls (at least in my mind). We also pretended to be a host of animals, and made up games like running around the room letting our feet touch only one color of floor tape.

Now I am trying to get caught up on some of my e-mail to people who may be coming to English Conversation this week. I've also been receiving an increasing amount of e-mail in German. Each day I wrestle with the choice of using a translation program for the sake of time, or using my brain and a dictionary. Viel spaß!

New Classmates

Mood: happy
Stage notes: Welching off of CDC for computer time (wondering if my German friends will figure out the meaning of ''welching''), just got several encouraging e-mails from friends

I had my first day of class at the VHS yesterday. Of my 10 classmates, 9 are women. The lone guy is also the only one who does not expect to stay in Köln long-term. It seems that several of the women are married to or in long-term relationships with German men. A few have lived here for years, but never learned German.

One interesting thing I discovered is that it may be possible for me to apply for German citizenship. A Mexican woman working as an au-pair here is currently in the process of gaining her citizenship. She only has one full German grandparent, which is the same as myself. Apparently Mexico allows dual-citizenship, so she does not have to renounce her Mexican passport. I think that the rules with the US might be more stringent, but it seems like something worth looking into.

New school?

I went to the VHS (sort of like community college) today to ask about taking German lessons with them. Although they cost much less, I think that the instruction will be comprable for me. It is 20 hours per week, but I will have Fridays off until October. The greatest benefit seems to be that the people who go to school here more often call Köln their home. I am hoping that I might have an easier time making long-term contacts here than in CDC where almost everyone leaves within a couple of months. There also seem to be a lot of Turkish students here, which I think will be interesting.

TEFL

A message left by a German friend on my voicemail this morning, ". . . sooo, then we can hang out, or hang on. I don't know." It made me smile and also feel better about my chronic mistakes in German. Let's hope that the day ahead is not so rough that it feels like we are just hanging on!

Humiliation

Today I am volunteering for the WJT. I wore a t-shirt to class that said WJT Volunteer on the back and it sparked quite the `conversation`. It began with my teacher saying that she does not think that single faith events are a good thing, and that all religions should come together. I responded that I thought that the Pope planned on visiting Jewish and Muslim leaders while he was here in the city and that I hoped that many young people of different faiths would have the opportunity to understand one another better. She then asked the class if they agreed that all religions were basically the same and that there should not be christian only events. They all whole-heartedly agreed. I thought of several solid responses. Too bad they were 15 min. too late and were in English (we are only allowed to speak German in class).

Later a student asked me what point is there in being Christian. He said we should all, `Eat, drink, and be merry´. He left out the `for tomorrow we die´ part. Again, our only common language was German. This was one of those days that really makes me want to be dilligent in my German studies! As a bonus, I rediscovered Ecclesiastes today, and I am sure that an opportunity to speak will present itself again. Now I`m off to compose and memorize some apologetics in simple German. No wonder I never seem to have time for (official) homework!

A rose colored day

Today was the end of my first session at CDC. Several of us gave our teacher flowers, and a man from France who is leaving the school brought each of the women a rose. I'm getting used to the European custom of kissing a person's cheek in greeting and farewell. Although, I must admit that it was a little strange the first time a Brazilian acquaintance came up and kissed me. After class we went out for ice cream (a habit that has taken no time to get used to!).

P.S-I know, I promised something meatier today. With my apologies, it will have to wait until tomorrow (Saturday). At least with the time difference, it will probably arrive before any of you wake up, and perhaps before some of you even go to bed.