Conversation course was an interesting experience. Our conversation course leader, Vanessa, was very open to any suggestions we had for activities in the conversation course. I also immediately noticed that she had an accent that was distinctly not German. We introduced ourselves, played a game in which we had to find people who positively answered questions on a list (for example, “Who likes to play soccer?” or “Who comes from the USA?”), discussed speciality foods in Germany (for example, Käsespaetzle, Bratwurst, or Wienerschnitzel), and then concluded the hour and a half-long session by getting to ask her questions about herself (in German, of course). Throughout our time this morning, I had first suspected that it was a Spanish accent that was creeping into her German (which was very fluent). However, her speech was not tinged with the characteristic lisp that many Spanish speakers from Spain exhibit. Thus, my guess evolved to Italy being her birthplace. As it turned out, both of my guesses were wrong. Vanessa was from Argentina, had started learning German at a young age, and had been living in Germany for the past two years. This was certainly not what any of us were expecting from a German conversation course teacher, but it was interesting.
Before lunch, I went to the office hours for my British literature teacher. When I got there, she was in the middle of a conversation with four Russian girls who were interested in joining this same class. Apparently, during the actual class time yesterday, everyone present had taken a test to see how familiar they were with the four books (assumingly, they were a sort of “summer reading” for those who had originally planned on taking this class). My instructor informed these girls that, if they were interested in joining the course, they would have to attend next week and take the test to see if they could be admitted. Overhearing this worried me a bit, but I met with her when she was finished talking with the girls. I had emailed her last night to let her know I was going to be stopping by. At first she mentioned that I might have to take the test as a formality. Then, after we had talked, and I let her know that I had already read all four of the books and was in the process of re-reading them, she mentioned that it might not be necessary for me to take this test at all. The last thing we discussed was my presentation topic for the class. The way presentations work in the class portion is thusly: four people are given the same date and same general topic for their presentations. They coordinate so that their presentations are on different aspects of this general topic. On the date of the presentation, their names are placed in a hat and one is drawn. This person must then perform their fifteen minute presentation, and the other three must turn their presentation into a six page paper over the following two weeks. This way, it could be either beneficial or not so beneficial to be drawn, depending on one’s opinion of speaking in class versus writing.
I mentioned yesterday that the tutorial and the actual class will effectively be two separate literature classes, because the tutorial covers the material that the actual class would have covered in the period of time from December to February. This means that in the actual class, we are first covering The Fellowship of the Ring and then beginning to touch on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the tutorial, we are starting with the Chronicles of Narnia book and then covering the two Harry Potter novels. As the presentations I just mentioned are in the actual class (hereafter referred to as “British literature class” versus the ”British literature tutorial”), the topics for selection were almost entirely regarding the Lord of the Rings, with only a few for the Chronicles of Narnia. When my instructor informed me that there were only topics for the Lord of the Rings left, I had hopes of getting a topic that I would very much enjoy. Being assigned the topic of “Where is the magic in the Lord of the Rings?” was the icing on the cake. Perhaps it was better than that…it may have been the cherry on top of the icing on top of the Black Forest Chocolate Cake (a delicious German desert, well worth tasting). It was all I could do to contain my excitement.
After a tasty lunch of schnitzel and pommes (French fries), I sat down in the cafeteria bistro with a cup of hot chocolate and finished off The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I had started last night. Now it is time to start The Fellowship of the Ring for next week and to work out before I go and meet with my tandem learning partner this evening. More stories and news will be forthcoming when I return home tonight.
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