What happened in New Orleans a few years ago is terribly unfortunate; lives were figuratively and literally lost, and if my blog were popular at the "general public" level I'm sure I'd get a lot of hate mail regarding the title of this entry. But rest easy, I'm not making fun of the situation in New Orleans or in Iowa... I'm making fun of religious zealots... because who doesn't love a good bible-beater-beating? (Considering my audience I'll probably get more hate mail from that lovely little tidbit of alliteration more than anything else... but carrying on...)
I was pondering aloud this past weekend with a friend of mine here who's actually from Iowa. In fact, there are three University of Iowa students in Dortmund at present (Tammy, Laila, and Lissy). Anyway, my thought was this: "I wonder how long it will be until some religious group or televangelist comes forward and describes Iowa as another 'Sodom and Gomorrah' that needed to be 'wiped clean' and 'saved through the grace of the Lord'?"
Basically I'm waiting for a conservative nut-job to fall from his or her fundamentalist tree and smack their little shell on the pavement below, emptying their nutty contents for all the passing world to see. The only reason I bring this up is because I find it helpful to vent my dissatisfaction to friends and family... and because I find this sort of "religious reckoning" absolutely appalling. Although I've never been a fan of the popular, "If he brings you to it, he'll get you through it," Christian key chain mantra, labeling natural events and disasters that are for the most part the result of simple, albeit destructive, weather patterns as "acts of God" meant to, "punish the sinner," for, "their evil wickedness and immoral actions" feels a little extreme. So it's legal to gamble in Iowa... is that really reason to flood and destroy more than 400 city blocks? Even thought I'm by no means a proponent of gambling, I still say no.
Of course I'm in Germany and I really have no idea if any cashews or pecans have come forth yet. In fact, I hope my preemptive-rant (I'm calling it a preemptive-rant at this point because I don't know if it has happened, or even if it will happen) is completely uncalled for in the case of Iowa. On the other hand I would like to note that the people responsible for the religious propaganda and condemnation that surrounded the hurricane that effected New Orleans will, by mandate of their own beliefs, burn in hell for all eternity. Why? Because true Christians know that God is the only arbiter come judgment day and that trying to assume the position or duties of the Lord is a more than sizable offense. (Which in turn makes me a hypocrite since I'm judging those who judged, but then again, I don't claim to be a "true" anything.)
Phew... well I feel better.
And in all reality I should. In fact, I shouldn't even be worrying about what Reverend Tithe, Pastor Eve L. Sinner , or Father Call-Our-800-Number-Now could potentially propagandize Iowa for since gay marriage was recently made legal in California.
I'm sure they're all busy fund-raising for a cure for gay.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
More about snails...
Another class... last week... talking about snails... here's the convo...
This took place in German, but for your convenience and mine... it's now in English.
Dr. Martin: It used to be possible to make a very broad doctoral thesis, but now, everything is very specialized since everything has already been covered in the broader sense. Now we have theses over things like... I don't know... "Why can't snails fly?"
Tijmen the Dutch Guy: What's a 'Schnecke?' (Snail)
Andrea: (Drawing a picture of a snail on her notebook) This is a snail.
Tijmen the Dutch Guy: Ooooooh. (continues playing racing games on his cell phone)
Dr. Martin: Snails like beer.
All students: Ooooook. (nod heads)
Dr. Martin: If you put out some beer in your backyard, all the nearby snails will come and gather around the beer.
Andrea: I thought that only worked with men?
Another funny/interesting conversation I had recently... not about snails... but beer...
The scene: two eight year old boys drawing pictures when I overhear them talking about Krombacher and Veltins (two beer brands).
Andrea: Krombacher? What?
Little Boy: It's delicious.
Andrea: And how old are you?
Little Boy: Eight.
(I stand there in my usual "I'm-too-shocked-to-say-anything" stance because I'm pretty sure he's serious.)
Little Boy: Yep, I drink the whole beer. It's good stuff.
Other Little Boy: I like Veltins better.
It should be noted that both little boys were drawing pictures of crates of beer. This was for a project I did for a literature class on how children interpret literature... it wasn't really what I expected... but I guess that's the point of doing research.
This took place in German, but for your convenience and mine... it's now in English.
Dr. Martin: It used to be possible to make a very broad doctoral thesis, but now, everything is very specialized since everything has already been covered in the broader sense. Now we have theses over things like... I don't know... "Why can't snails fly?"
Tijmen the Dutch Guy: What's a 'Schnecke?' (Snail)
Andrea: (Drawing a picture of a snail on her notebook) This is a snail.
Tijmen the Dutch Guy: Ooooooh. (continues playing racing games on his cell phone)
Dr. Martin: Snails like beer.
All students: Ooooook. (nod heads)
Dr. Martin: If you put out some beer in your backyard, all the nearby snails will come and gather around the beer.
Andrea: I thought that only worked with men?
Another funny/interesting conversation I had recently... not about snails... but beer...
The scene: two eight year old boys drawing pictures when I overhear them talking about Krombacher and Veltins (two beer brands).
Andrea: Krombacher? What?
Little Boy: It's delicious.
Andrea: And how old are you?
Little Boy: Eight.
(I stand there in my usual "I'm-too-shocked-to-say-anything" stance because I'm pretty sure he's serious.)
Little Boy: Yep, I drink the whole beer. It's good stuff.
Other Little Boy: I like Veltins better.
It should be noted that both little boys were drawing pictures of crates of beer. This was for a project I did for a literature class on how children interpret literature... it wasn't really what I expected... but I guess that's the point of doing research.
"At times I make up words." - Mary Daly, radical feminist and my personal hero
I generally don't make up too many words, but I do confuse them quite frequently. Most people will tell you that this is quite common, especially when learning a "sister" language like German. Today was an excellent example.
When talking about geographic minorities, in comparison to ethnic minorities, in Germany someone brought up Zigeuner, gypsies, as a geographic minority and Dr. Martin said something along the lines of:
"Es gibt nicht eine Menge Zigeuner in Deutschland, also versuchen wir, sie zu schützen."
Excuse any errors I may have made there (not that many of my readers speak German, but still). Anyway, basically he said, "There aren't that many gypsies in Germany and we [the German people] want to protect them."
QUICK GERMAN LESSON (and something necessary to understanding the comedy of this situation):
When Dr. Martin said, "Es gibt nicht eine Menge Zigeuner in Deutschland, also versuchen wir, sie zu schützen," or "There aren't that many gypsies in Germany and we [the German people] want to protect them," I mistook the verb schützen for a cognate and personally translated it as:
There aren't that many gypsies in Germany and and we [the German people] want to shoot them.
Obviously, I was incorrect. Luckily for me this was by no means the worst mistake I've made when learning the German language. It's the third.
Runner-up dates back to last semester, the morning after the shooting that occurred in Westroads Mall in Omaha, during a Konversation course when we were talking about current events in our home areas. (It's now that I should quickly note that foreigners, more specifically Europeans, seem to have a odd fascination/highly enjoy talking about or criticizing the United States and it's history of school/public shootings. In addition, a school shooting attempt had been recently foiled in Köln, which is near Dortmund and in the coming weeks, Finland would experience it's first school shooting in like twenty years, not to mention it's most deadly). That being said, I was trying to explain what had happened, and not knowing the verb for "shooting", quickly looked it up in my handy-dandy electronic dictionary. The verb was "Schießen"... pronounced phonetically as, "She's-Zen," because in German the second vowel (in this case is the 'e' highlighted in green) is pronounced, rather than the 'i' like it would be in English. Anyway, I was trying to tell them that there was a large shooting in Omaha, Nebraka but instead I pronounced the 'i' instead of the 'e' which changed my verb from shooting to shitting and ultimately changed my sentence into, "There was a large shitting in Omaha, Nebraska." People laughed, I was embarrassed.... end of story.
The Grand Champion of language goof ups goes to the same verb. This happened at the beginning of this semester (early April) during a Literature, Culture, and Language course. We were reading William Tell aloud in class when I was asked to read. More specifically, I was asked to read the part where Mr. Tell shoots the apple off his sons head. I made the exact same mistake I'd made before and said that, "He shit the apple off his head," instead of shooting it off his head.
Well here they are, my top three language goof-ups. If you're not satisfied, have no fear, tomorrows another day and inevitably another dozen or so chances for me to butcher the German language.
When talking about geographic minorities, in comparison to ethnic minorities, in Germany someone brought up Zigeuner, gypsies, as a geographic minority and Dr. Martin said something along the lines of:
"Es gibt nicht eine Menge Zigeuner in Deutschland, also versuchen wir, sie zu schützen."
Excuse any errors I may have made there (not that many of my readers speak German, but still). Anyway, basically he said, "There aren't that many gypsies in Germany and we [the German people] want to protect them."
QUICK GERMAN LESSON (and something necessary to understanding the comedy of this situation):
- Cognates are words that are similar in both languages.
- Example: Kultur, Baby, Bier, Karotte und Auto (respectively: culture, baby, beer, carrot, and car. It should also be noted that I'm not really sure if car is considered a cognate or not, but just the same, it's one of those words that if you know English you can probably figure out what "auto" means in German).
- The verb to protect is schützen in German.
- Schützen is phonetically similar to saying "Shoots-sen".
- Go ahead, try to say "Shoots-sen"... it sounds like it looks... shoot, right?
When Dr. Martin said, "Es gibt nicht eine Menge Zigeuner in Deutschland, also versuchen wir, sie zu schützen," or "There aren't that many gypsies in Germany and we [the German people] want to protect them," I mistook the verb schützen for a cognate and personally translated it as:
There aren't that many gypsies in Germany and and we [the German people] want to shoot them.
Obviously, I was incorrect. Luckily for me this was by no means the worst mistake I've made when learning the German language. It's the third.
Runner-up dates back to last semester, the morning after the shooting that occurred in Westroads Mall in Omaha, during a Konversation course when we were talking about current events in our home areas. (It's now that I should quickly note that foreigners, more specifically Europeans, seem to have a odd fascination/highly enjoy talking about or criticizing the United States and it's history of school/public shootings. In addition, a school shooting attempt had been recently foiled in Köln, which is near Dortmund and in the coming weeks, Finland would experience it's first school shooting in like twenty years, not to mention it's most deadly). That being said, I was trying to explain what had happened, and not knowing the verb for "shooting", quickly looked it up in my handy-dandy electronic dictionary. The verb was "Schießen"... pronounced phonetically as, "She's-Zen," because in German the second vowel (in this case is the 'e' highlighted in green) is pronounced, rather than the 'i' like it would be in English. Anyway, I was trying to tell them that there was a large shooting in Omaha, Nebraka but instead I pronounced the 'i' instead of the 'e' which changed my verb from shooting to shitting and ultimately changed my sentence into, "There was a large shitting in Omaha, Nebraska." People laughed, I was embarrassed.... end of story.
The Grand Champion of language goof ups goes to the same verb. This happened at the beginning of this semester (early April) during a Literature, Culture, and Language course. We were reading William Tell aloud in class when I was asked to read. More specifically, I was asked to read the part where Mr. Tell shoots the apple off his sons head. I made the exact same mistake I'd made before and said that, "He shit the apple off his head," instead of shooting it off his head.
Well here they are, my top three language goof-ups. If you're not satisfied, have no fear, tomorrows another day and inevitably another dozen or so chances for me to butcher the German language.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Snail Week
I'm thinking about getting my TEFL certification (teaching English as a foreign language). I have the experience, but now I'd have the credentials as well which would actually "mean something" in the eyes of society (i.e. various applications). That, and I really enjoy it. The basic class certification starts at $325 (60 hour class) and goes up to $470 (120 hour class). In all truth, I'd like to get the full 120-hour certification since it'd be more complete (not to mention more useful),... but I think that will all depend on funds.
Mom, Scott, and Neila came home from Florida today. I called when they got home only to be cut short by the arrival of the grandkids. If only I were cute, little, and still in preschool... or maybe I could just run around with my mouth open trying to bite one of my siblings (because they do an awful lot of that, too).
It was "Snail Week" at Ostenberg Grundshule this week. I arrived on Monday morning only to find all of the kids running around outside looking for snails and picking grass (Germany has monstrous snails... at least way bigger than anything I ever captured as a kid). Later, after the habitats had been set up, we read from their science book about Schneckekinder (snail babies)... i.e. where baby snails come from. It was then that I realized how much of a prude I am (perhaps the correct term is actually 'puritanical American'). In the biology book, there was a picture of two snails mid-coitus. Of course they're snails - which are roughly 0.0127 points above being asexual - but this was a book for six and seven year olds... and in my "advanced age" I was thought to myself, "When I was your age, we didn't talk about sex in school! And when we did it was purely speculation!" (Thank you public schools for denying your students sex ed. and thank you Christian schools for denying sex entirely [note the sarcasm])
Anyway, this was a fleeting moment of conservative "Oh my!" until I turned the pages to a future chapter with a two page spread titled: "Mädchen oder Junge?" (Girl or Boy?) They were cartoons... but the first page pictured a back view of two naked and rather androgynous children. The text said something about not being able to tell the difference from the back whereas the next page had a front view of both anatomically correct children. In addition, just in case you failed to notice, there were oh-so-conveniently pointing arrows to, you guessed it, a penis and a vagina. I nearly fell off my chair.
The worst part of this whole experience is not that there was animated nudity in these books, it was that I was disappointed in myself for being so shocked by these pictures. You see I realized that I truly am a product of the United States school system, and not that that's completely failed me yet, but obviously the 'nudity-phobe' culture from which I emerged has had a lasting effect. In addition, I felt completely unworthy of calling myself liberal.
On a final note, I've almost completed the hour requirement for my internship. (This is good news.)
Hopefully within coming weeks I'll have something a bit more interesting to write about than snail sex... but just so you don't leave without learning anything... snails lay sixty eggs at a time. Spread the word.
Mom, Scott, and Neila came home from Florida today. I called when they got home only to be cut short by the arrival of the grandkids. If only I were cute, little, and still in preschool... or maybe I could just run around with my mouth open trying to bite one of my siblings (because they do an awful lot of that, too).
It was "Snail Week" at Ostenberg Grundshule this week. I arrived on Monday morning only to find all of the kids running around outside looking for snails and picking grass (Germany has monstrous snails... at least way bigger than anything I ever captured as a kid). Later, after the habitats had been set up, we read from their science book about Schneckekinder (snail babies)... i.e. where baby snails come from. It was then that I realized how much of a prude I am (perhaps the correct term is actually 'puritanical American'). In the biology book, there was a picture of two snails mid-coitus. Of course they're snails - which are roughly 0.0127 points above being asexual - but this was a book for six and seven year olds... and in my "advanced age" I was thought to myself, "When I was your age, we didn't talk about sex in school! And when we did it was purely speculation!" (Thank you public schools for denying your students sex ed. and thank you Christian schools for denying sex entirely [note the sarcasm])
Anyway, this was a fleeting moment of conservative "Oh my!" until I turned the pages to a future chapter with a two page spread titled: "Mädchen oder Junge?" (Girl or Boy?) They were cartoons... but the first page pictured a back view of two naked and rather androgynous children. The text said something about not being able to tell the difference from the back whereas the next page had a front view of both anatomically correct children. In addition, just in case you failed to notice, there were oh-so-conveniently pointing arrows to, you guessed it, a penis and a vagina. I nearly fell off my chair.
The worst part of this whole experience is not that there was animated nudity in these books, it was that I was disappointed in myself for being so shocked by these pictures. You see I realized that I truly am a product of the United States school system, and not that that's completely failed me yet, but obviously the 'nudity-phobe' culture from which I emerged has had a lasting effect. In addition, I felt completely unworthy of calling myself liberal.
On a final note, I've almost completed the hour requirement for my internship. (This is good news.)
Hopefully within coming weeks I'll have something a bit more interesting to write about than snail sex... but just so you don't leave without learning anything... snails lay sixty eggs at a time. Spread the word.
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