For Real

"Miss Havisham was a bit like a strict parent, your worst teacher and a newly appointed South American dictator all rolled into one. Which wasn't to say I didn't like her or respect her--it was just that I felt I was still nine whenever she spoke to me."

--Thursday Next in Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots


That pretty much sums up my relationship to...umm, almost everyone at the moment. After a good three weeks of speaking little or no German--which, hmm, really isn't any different from life before those 3 weeks, now that I'm thinking about it--my German is, well, a bit rusty to say the least. I forget that Germans don't know how to interact with introverts. (Yes, that's what I said. No, it's not really true. But sometimes I think it could be. I should be shot for making such sweeping generalizations. Fine. Come on over and shoot me then. Please.) I guess it's the whole German directness thing. I kind of thought that was just a stereotype. I mean, we've already debunked the myth of German efficiency, so why wouldn't it be plausible to think that the German directness thing is just some sort of exaggerative characterization created by easily offended American tourists, who were once brutally remonstrated by some Oma for crossing against the light, right? Wrong. German directness is for real. And it has nothing to do with the Omas, who, really, as long as you know when to stay on the sidewalk, are actually quite nice.