28 April, 2006
Today has been a day I am glad that I am not easily embarrassed, as today saw me teaching a class of twelve year olds the phrase “flying low”, but only after they had used the German equivalent out of necessity to inform me that I was “flying low”.
A short amount of investigation soon showed me that the fly on my jeans was broken, as I did them up only to be informed a few minutes later they were once again displaying my boxers to the class and as this was the first lesson of the day at that point in time I could only imagine how many times over the day I’d have to do my fly back up and indeed I gave up counting after a while.
But that was only a starter for ten, as my next class (thanks to their usual teacher) discovered a game called “What can’t David pronounce properly in German?” It started with me correcting a student on pronouncing a ‘v’ – a common mistake for Germans and clearly audible when they say, “Ve haf ways ov makink you talk!” or “I vil hav my rewenge!” – although in this case the problem word was, “vet”. I can only surmise that the regular teacher at this point pointed out to a couple of students that English people have problems with certain sounds in German and gave them a few example to start them off and then cue the questions…
“David, can you say ‘Überraschungsei’”…
“David, can you say ‘München’”…
“David, can you say ‘möchte’”…
The answer is that I can kind of say them, but I am obviously an English speaker and I have to admit 
I wish I could appreciate what German with an English accent sounded like.
But the day wasn’t over yet and I managed to commit yet another schoolboy error, as needing to go to the toilet I headed to the nearest loos and not thinking walked straight though the door marked ‘M’, luckily in this case I it was during a lesson so there were no witnesses for that mistake – and for the readers with no knowledge of German the M stands for Mädchen or as they are know in English ‘girls’.
27 April, 2006
Today I managed to deliver what was a slightly Luhrman English lesson to a class on Romeo and Juliet, although I would like to think it was slightly more educational (and no less entertaining) than his treatment of it.
I had been tasked with doing a lesson on the initial meeting of Romeo and Juliet and I figured that I also pose the question of what for Romeo is ‘love’? The beginning was slightly different as in the preceding lesson they had seen the first scene from two film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet; the classic Zefferelli version and the more recent version by Baz Luhrman. I was asked to get them talking about the beginnings and so I did and this was when things started to slide as I am normally careful about my language in lessons (after all there are teachers watching), but when I came to describe the Luhrman version of Tybalt, I described him in quite an unshakespearian manner as “a mean mother fucker”.
The rest of the lesson was similarly irreverent, when talking about the differences between fighting with swords and guns; one student commented that guns, unlike swords result in instant kills. I corrected the student by giving the example of me shooting him in the kneecap and although he might wish he were dead, he would be alive and very aware of it due to the pain he would be in. In the same conversation I also commented that Bastard swords were called ‘Bastard’ swords because they were such big bastards.
Then we got onto the meat of the lesson that I had planned, except as they hadn’t received the texts for the play yet I couldn’t get them reading it and so I had to present extracts to them orally, with a commentary of how it would have been written if I had written the play instead of Shakespeare.
Here are a few examples, that I gave the class…
First I outlined that in the beginning Romeo is actually in love with another girl called Rosaline, who spurns his advances and whilst Shakespeare writes:
Well in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit,
With Cupid’s arrow; she hath Dian’s wit,
And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of asailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O, she is rich in beauty, only poor,
That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
In ‘Davespeak’ it basically translates as, “She’s giving me the cold shoulder and she won’t even look at me, even the fact I am rich cannot tempt her to spread her legs and with a body like hers it’s such a waste.”
I outlined Romeo’s desire for Rosaline and how he thinks there is no woman more lovely than her and that as a result he goes to the celebration at the Capulet’s house on one hand to see Rosaline as she will be there, but also for Benvolio to show him others to make “his swan a crow”.
I continued onto the scene itself giving only a rapid overview due to lack of texts, focusing on how rapidly Romeo and Juliet fall for each other, whilst in reality not knowing the identity of the other. Obviously the scene ends with them each becoming aware of who the other is and upon finding out the Juliet is a Capulet, Shakespeare has Romeo say, “Is she a Capulet? O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.”
In ‘Davespeak’ this became just one word to be uttered repeatedly as Romeo hit’s his head against a wall and the word was “BOLLOCKS!” Less poetic, than Shakespeare perhaps, but I suspect not that inaccurate. I gave a similar translation for Juliet’s speech on finding out the identity of Romeo as well – after all in a situation such as this how eloquent do people really tend to be.
25 April, 2006
I seem to be very popular at the moment and indeed my popularity could result in me staying in Germany a lot longer than the end of May, which is when my current contract expires.
Indeed it seems to be so certain that I am going to be here for another year I have already started to have people coming up to me saying that they are pleased to hear I will be here for another year – I just love school gossip!
At the moment there are 3 possible options; I return to the UK in June, I stay in Germany until the end of the school year or I stay in Germany for the next school year and it came up in discussion with the Head of English today and I told him that whilst I would be happy to stay until the end of the year, the catch is that they will have to find the money from somewhere and the idea of doing an extra year isn’t something that I’d object to however financially I’d need to be earning slightly more as I soon will have to pay off an overdraft I still have from university, although I did say I’d be happy to do more work for the school as well in exchange. Still, it should be interesting in the subject conference tomorrow, when I suspect my future at the school could be on the agenda as my past certainly is, as item 6 is basically, “What has it been like working with David?”
Then after school I head to the pub for the school quiz and I find out that I am also in demand there and on the 7th May I apparently am wanted in drag to help host a charity event at the Irish Pub and also record the event with my camera, so if I stay in Germany I suspect the Irish Pub will continue to make ‘good’ use of me.
Still we shall see what the future holds as I do kind of want to return to the UK and not only because I would like to earn slightly more than enough to just get by, although that certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing. A return to the UK would also mean I could try and pursue a couple of things that are dear to me such as my photography as I will probably try to get back into earning money for photos if I get the chance.
The next month or so could be interesting, still either way I have had a good 8 or so months here.
23 April, 2006
Someone called Rizwan Ahmed aka Riz MC has been causing a bit of a stir lately with a track called Post 9/11 Blues and quite a lot of people seem to like it and whilst I will admit it is catchy in a ‘pop’ sense it’s not really that good.
Someone called Rizwan Ahmed aka Riz MC has been causing a bit of a stir lately with a track called Post 9/11 Blues and quite a lot of people seem to like it and whilst I will admit it is catchy in a ‘pop’ sense it’s not really that good.
In fact I suspect the only reason it is getting the coverage it is, is due to the fact that it might be deemed to politically sensitive to play, as people still don’t seem to want to agree on whether things like the ‘war on terror’ are justified or just a modern crusade.
As an example of how witty the song is here are a couple of examples of it’s lyrics, “Everybody do the post 9/11 dance, look scared, shake your ass, when the bombs go blast.” And, “ I farted, got arrested for a chemical attack.” It certainly isn’t no Bob Dylan and I and won’t be challenging U2 for the title of “Nation’s Favourite Lyric”
But go and judge for yourself on his MySpace page.
21 April, 2006
I learned today that old Deutsche Marks are still worth something and I am not the only person in Kiel to learn that recently. Whilst reading the news I came upon the story of a pensioner flushing DM60,000 down the toilet in the mistaken belief that the old notes were worthless, when his stash was actually worth about €30,000 or just over twenty grand in English money.
Fortunately for him most of it was recovered after he blocked his toilet and his mistake was presumably pointed out by a plumber, which must be a first after all most people are left a lot poorer after a visit from the plumber. Then it was just a case of drying out the money and taking it to the bank and waiting for the inevitable bad jokes about it, such as:
“Police said the man lived in “spartan” circumstances and had dried out the notes and taken them to a bank. It was unclear if he had laundered the money first.”
20 April, 2006
BT apparently have had a feature for a day or two now where you can send SMS messages to landline phones and they will be read out to the recipient by Tom Baker.
Naturally however, someone has already subverted it and whilst bored has put this service to inevitable use and has created a small website where you can hear Tom Baker say rude words, ‘sing’ Video Killed The Radio Star and even tell jokes…