"I wrote down a dream...
folded the note
slipped it in the pocket of my tattered coat
I wrote down a dream
in invisible ink
It never was mine I'm beginning to think..."
-OtR
This day has been surreal. I went to bed well after the sun was up and got up a few hours later, because I had a busy day ahead of me. And a busy Saturday in Hohenlohe is worth getting up for, no matter how tired you are.
I spent the afternoon in Schwaebisch Hall at the town's 850th anniversary celebration. First of all, 850 years. That's like, what, at least 3 times longer than the US has been a country?? I still can't really wrap my mind around how OLD things are in Europe. Or the concept of time in general, but we don't need to get into that...
It was cool and rained the whole time, but was enjoyable in spite of the weather. I heard an American guy who's been living in Schwaebisch Hall for some 20 years speaking German, and was like, oh my gosh, does my accent sound that bad?? The response of the person I was with? "Well, he's lived here a lot longer than you." Ouch. Seriously, I wonder why I bother sometimes.
When I went to catch the bus home, though, there was this group of kids waiting at the bus stop, and I was like, hey, I know them... some of them, at least. They were kids from my school, so I'm thinking maybe they decided to do something as a class on the weekend or something, and I start looking around for a teacher. Found him. One of the ones I don't know at all but really like. We chat briefly. He asks how much longer I'm in Germany, etc. Then he asked why I'd decided to study German in the first place... Good question. I tell him what happened. He tells me I speak German really well. I respond with a wry laugh. I mean, see previous language-related comment.
.......................................................................
So my earlier post about how I haven't started the anticipatory grieving yet... I was wrong. The next morning I had one of my conversation classes with a group of students who are about to graduate. They'd just had their last English class. Ever. (We have the next couple of week off, and then they have oral exams, and then they're done with school.) So we were talking about that a little bit. About this being an end and a beginning. About it not seeming real. About their plans for the future--or lack thereof. And I felt weirdly nostalgic. Maybe not nostalgic. Maybe just painfully aware of how far away high school seems and how different EVERYTHING was then. In good ways and in not so good ways. I feel like I've lived several lifetimes between then and now. And maybe in some ways I have. But it's a little weird for me to see these "kids" at this particular stage in life and to hear their thoughts about the whole thing...
slipped it in the pocket of my tattered coat
I wrote down a dream
in invisible ink
It never was mine I'm beginning to think..."
-OtR
This day has been surreal. I went to bed well after the sun was up and got up a few hours later, because I had a busy day ahead of me. And a busy Saturday in Hohenlohe is worth getting up for, no matter how tired you are.
I spent the afternoon in Schwaebisch Hall at the town's 850th anniversary celebration. First of all, 850 years. That's like, what, at least 3 times longer than the US has been a country?? I still can't really wrap my mind around how OLD things are in Europe. Or the concept of time in general, but we don't need to get into that...
It was cool and rained the whole time, but was enjoyable in spite of the weather. I heard an American guy who's been living in Schwaebisch Hall for some 20 years speaking German, and was like, oh my gosh, does my accent sound that bad?? The response of the person I was with? "Well, he's lived here a lot longer than you." Ouch. Seriously, I wonder why I bother sometimes.
When I went to catch the bus home, though, there was this group of kids waiting at the bus stop, and I was like, hey, I know them... some of them, at least. They were kids from my school, so I'm thinking maybe they decided to do something as a class on the weekend or something, and I start looking around for a teacher. Found him. One of the ones I don't know at all but really like. We chat briefly. He asks how much longer I'm in Germany, etc. Then he asked why I'd decided to study German in the first place... Good question. I tell him what happened. He tells me I speak German really well. I respond with a wry laugh. I mean, see previous language-related comment.
.......................................................................
So my earlier post about how I haven't started the anticipatory grieving yet... I was wrong. The next morning I had one of my conversation classes with a group of students who are about to graduate. They'd just had their last English class. Ever. (We have the next couple of week off, and then they have oral exams, and then they're done with school.) So we were talking about that a little bit. About this being an end and a beginning. About it not seeming real. About their plans for the future--or lack thereof. And I felt weirdly nostalgic. Maybe not nostalgic. Maybe just painfully aware of how far away high school seems and how different EVERYTHING was then. In good ways and in not so good ways. I feel like I've lived several lifetimes between then and now. And maybe in some ways I have. But it's a little weird for me to see these "kids" at this particular stage in life and to hear their thoughts about the whole thing...
posted by be at 1:11 AM
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