Author: Richard Goguen

Hello again an alle,

Sorry for the very long break between posts. A couple of reasons, one being laziness, the others being a two week trip to the Balkans at the end of October, lots of stress due to the Landesschulbehörde, and lastly I’ve been really sick for the last three weeks, basically since I got back from my trip. Anyway, I’ll use this post to go over some of the previously mentioned events in more detail and to explain what else my life has entailed these last few months in Germany.

So, after some initial -not very big-  issues at my school, like not really having a Betreuungsleher and such, I finally have found my rhythm and which classes I want to be in. I especially enjoy lessons with my 5 graders, as they are in “English Fast-forward” and are leagues beyond what you’d expect for their age. I can just speak normally to them and they mostly understand me. Plus they’re ridiculously funny. Today we actually did a sort of presentation which was part of the school’s Christmas event where the kids sang two Christmas songs. They sang “Last Christmas” and “Jinglebell Rock” both of which (especially “Last Christmas”) where much too hard for them, but they chose them themselves! The performance didn’t go exactly as planned (Music cut out during Jinglebell Rock and the kids had no idea what to do) and I was on stage with them looking ridiculous, but it was fun anyway!

Aside from the I spend a lot of time with one Oberstufe class of students doing their Abitur exam at the end of the year. Right now they are doing the film Billy Elliot as their topic. Otherwise I dabble in 7th, 8th, 9th, and sometimes 11th grade. Which is actually less diverse than last year (where I also did 10th!). Anyway, sometimes getting between Wolfsburg and Braunschweig is annoying, but it’s worth it to live here in BS, which is much nicer than Wolfsburg, and has the added benefit of the other assistants living here!

Anyway, speaking of people being sick, I was out with a terrible cold flu for like two weeks from beginning of November on and I am technically still a little sick even now, over 3 weeks later, but I am a lot better! Before the sickness though I was living it up on my trip to the Balkans, which included going down through Romania from Cluj-Napoca to Timisoara and then on into Serbia and finally Bosnia. I learned so much from the experience, as I knew very little about these Eastern European countries. Bosnia and the capital city of Sarajevo were particularly interesting, given the wealth of information on both WWI (and what started it all) and the Siege of Sarajevo. I was only a little kid when the Bosnian war was raging, so learning about it now is crazy! I also had awesome travel companians in to other Assistants from the States, Andrew and Vicky. All in all it was an awesome two weeks, but word to the wise, trains (and all public transport for that matter) are absolutely awful in Romania. There are no signs and indications letting you know where stops are, or where to get out, and the bus drivers are like sealed into their compartment so you can’t ask them (even if they could speak English :P). This lead to some misadventures, but hey that’s the fun of travelling!

So last but not least I’ll mention my troubles with the Landesschulbehörde, which is the governmental organization that pays me (essentially the school district). Now to be fair, we are told that we may have to wait up to six weeks for payment, but my expectations were that I’d be paid within a month, which is what happened last year. However, this was not the case. In fact, I didn’t get paid until basically November (while I was in the Balkans, basically penniless, save for some handout money from my saint-like generous parents) , which was really pushing it, seeing as I arrived in Germany beginning of September and started work on the 15th. I was starting to have problems with my roommates (not paying rent and all) and I was super stressed and annoyed, but thankfully I sent an angry email and managed to work it out. A friend of mine didn’t get paid till last week though, so I wasn’t the only one getting screwed over. Anyway all is good now, but it was a stressful time. Here’s hoping the rest my time here goes at least a little more smoothly!

I swear I will add some pictures (and maybe even spice the text up some how) as soon as I get it all onto my computer and sort through the huge collection of photos on my phone. It takes forever to get them on the laptop!

Ok thanks for reading!

Craig

Moin!

So I’m Craig, and a recent graduate of the department, but since most people reading this blog probably know me or of me, that’s all I’ll say about me. 🙂

So I’ve been in Deutschland (Specifically the city of Braunschweig, in the state of Niedersachsen in northern Germany) for about 2 and a half weeks now, and I finally have the time and energy to describe them for anyone interested! I think I might make a personal blog as well, so that I can see all my posts in one list, but this is great because it might actually motivate me to write my blog, which I failed at last year, but I can’t let the department down!

So my first few weeks can be broken down into two main events: me getting eingelebt (settled in) – watch out for Denglish, I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot!- and after my settling in period, going to my Einführungstagung to work as an Ehemaliger, or former assistant, to help the PAD with the course.

So to recap my first adventures here, I left Canada on the 2nd of September with my parents, who happened to be flying out to Scotland on the same day as I was to Germany. The big difference being that my parents flight was at 9am on the 2nd and mine was at 10:30pm, which meant after leaving the Island the day before and staying in a hotel, we all got up at 6am and went to the airport, where I immediately said by to my parents for 10 months and started the 15 hour wait in the airport…but because I have kind and benevolent Eltern, they gave me some money for my basic needs like food and stuff. Anyway because of free internet the wait ended up being not so bad (for 15 hours) and I was airborne before I knew it. The flight was less horrible than I was expecting (I have a fear of flying, but I never let it stop me) and I arrived in good ol’ Deutschland before I knew it. Then I had a rush to catch my train from the Frankfurtflughafen station direct to Braunschweig, but my Bahncard 50 had expired, so I needed to buy a knew one real quite so that I wouldn’t be fined for having a cheaper ticket. Which was stressful because I had 15 minutes to do it in before my train, and because my phone was dead and I didn’t know my new address in BS yet, which meant I had to rush in, ask for a power outlet, charge my phone, what’sapp my new roommate, and then buy the ticket. But I managed it with time to spare! 😀 Afterwards the train ride to BS was a blur due to exhaustion, but I met a nice German man and we talked for th 2.5 hours before I jumped out, finally at my destination! There one of my new roommates Amelie picked me up and led me to my new home. Honestly my apartment is awesome. My room is large, the rent is super günstig (warm too!) and my roommates are super nice. Amelie is 25 and a student, Patrick is 28 and a Berater for a Firma, and Eva is 36 and works for a company as an Ingenieurin. Also I get to be the youngest! Anyway the first few days consisted of my unpacking and basically lounging about and sleeping all the time due to jetlag. It was terrible. But I did manage to do to important things the first week: Open my bank account and register myself as a Braunschweiger, something you must always due in German cities (and villages and everywhere) because Germany likes to know where you live at ALL times. But you get some sweet coupons from the City out of it!

One great thing about Braunschweig is that I already have so German friends who live here, so I within the first week I saw a guy who went to my high school as an international student play in his band at a festival in the city (Magnifest) and I hadn’t seen him in like 8 years so it was pretty cool. The following day my friend Anna who also went to my high school once upon a time invited me to one of her friend’s birthday parties (she got permission first!) and I met lots of new people there, including a girl who graduated from the Gymnasium I will be teaching at, which was a cool connection to make. Aside from that I have also dabbled in helping Anna’s boyfriend Marc with an Englisch exam he is preparing for. The cool thing is when I first met Marc 5 years ago on my first trip here, we could not really communicate because he couldn’t speak English and I could barely speak German, but now I can have full conversations with him, which really shows how far I’ve come in German and makes me happy! His English is also improving, but he only started relearning recently. I’ve also been watching Tatort every Sunday with my roommates, which is natürlich an important German Kultursache. First episode that I saw was in Switzerland (Charlotte!) but they had dubbed it over with German voice actors (Verdammte Synchronisierung!) Although I probably wouldn’t understand it in Schweizer Deutsch!  Well that pretty much wraps up my settling in phase, but there was still one more important event before I could really start my life in Germany:

My Einführungstagung in Köln! Now the PAD had asked me months ago if I would support them as an Ehemaliger in this Tagung and I said “Na Klar!” of course, and I’m glad I did, because it was so fun, and of course I got to meet lots of cool assistants both near me in Niedersachsen and quite far away. What was especially cool was that 5 people from Victoria were there, and 4 of them were Uvic Germanic Studies students: Lauren, Stephanie, Alex, and I of course! So it was fun being the biggest group of any one Uni (or at least Canadian Uni). The Tagung started on Monday the 15th of Sept. and was over on Thursday. As an Ehemaliger with 2 others working together (Tom, who I knew from my Tagung last year, and Lydia, who did it the year before me and knows Grant Mason of Uvic, who did the PAD the year before me! Small world! 🙂 ) our job was to help the new assistants with things. We had a question night where they could ask questions by submitting them to a box, which started slow but ended well, and on the last night we did a pub quiz. It was a lot of fun, and of course much time was spent in the Cellar Bar. On Thursday we then left Maria in der Aue (the name of the hotel in the middle of nowhere) and headed back to Köln, where we all split off to head to our new respective schools and cities. I still didn’t know what was going on with me, so I had to call my school from Köln, but I will tell more about that in my next post, which is to follow soon. This is getting quite long, and also probably awefully written because I’m trying to remember and cram so much in. So sorry about that, I’ll be more succinct in my next post. Hopefully. It’s never been my strength, I kinda love to talk. 😀

At any rate I arrived back in Braunschweig with my fellow Braunschweig assistants (Rachel and Chris who are very nice peeps from jolly old England…there are also still two Americans and a French assistant I intend to contact!) on Thursday evening and headed back to my apartment after eating some lasagna at Chris’s. Friday was my first day at School but I didn’t do much, but again, I’ll have a real post on my school and that will then brings us up to date with today having been Monday and my second day on the job. I have tomorrow off, so I should be able to write that as well. Sorry about the length again, procrastination is my number one skill, so it happens when I let to much stuff happen without a post. Ok well bis zum naechsten Mal! Tschuess und LG aus Deutschland.