Another long, drawn-out cultural rant brought on by my students

Some days it seems like all I do is constantly defend one nationality from another. With my Greek kids I try to tell them that the Germans aren’t all cold and cruel and racist. With my German seniors I have to say that Greeks aren’t at all out to steal Germany’s money. Etc, etc, etc…

I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it’s some weird American hang-up of mine to try and promote multiculturalism whereever I go. And I guess after all those school and college years spent listening to white people telling me it’s the bee’s knees, I’ve turned into a little melting pot evangelist.

Maybe it’s cause I’m slightly possessive and protective of my classes. They are my responsibility after all, plus I don’t like something that I’ve seen the vulnerable side of being attacked in any way.

(Oh man just had to do a quick preposition check just now. My poor brain is awash in a sea of languages and doesn’t know what sounds right anymore. Is it vulnerable side to or of?  HA!)

Thursday, wow. I jumped right in with my seniors this week. They were grumbling and negative, but I care about them and teaching them a second year requires less prep work. On Wednesday we had a smaller class than normal and we had a rambling discussion about European politics, the housing market, the Euro vs. the DMark, humidity, September 11th, Germany’s former territory in Poland and then the War: the one and only that matters here.

I can’t describe it in a paragraph. I need pages and pages to tell you about the depth of my feelings when it comes to WWII and Germany. They don’t want to bring it up, they are tired of being told they’re Nazis. They were children during the war for the most part, and they are tired of being told they knew, and they are tired of having to pretend the trauma of their childhood doesn’t count for anything, because they weren’t Jews. And if we were in Berlin, many of them would hide a rape or two at the hands of the Russian soldiers.

I watched Inglourious Basterds and I expected to like it. But I hated it. It was like some glorified WWII video game; like you could just prance into a situation and it would be crystal clear, without a doubt what’s right of wrong. I turned it off after Diane Kruger shot the Nazi dad. I love Tarantino. I just wish he had chosen any other topic. It could never be a lighthearted flick for me. As if history is that simple; as if everything is so black and white. As if no one suffered anything but those deserving it. As if American soldiers didn’t go AWOL like cowards after they found a new European mistress. As if many good ol’ country boys didn’t go back home leaving bastard children to grow up without fathers. As if America didn’t follow the same old tired politics of only taking action when there’s enough popular movement not to rule out a re-election.

And we did good things in the war and we certainly sped up the process from the previous drawn-out hellhole that was WWI and brave men died far away from home.

But simple? No. Good vs. Bad? No. All Germans were Nazis? No.

And I ask myself why I get so worked up. I ask myself why I get so annoyed when I hear Americans talking about the war like it was yesterday. I ask myself why it’s so important that they see Germany is so much more than Nazis and Hitler.

But I’m convinced that this matters. I’m convinced that blurring the humanity of the Germans is dangerous. I’m worried that we’ve been able to glorify war to a dangerous level by always having them on foreign soil and leaving the mess for someone else to deal with. Why are all these men coming back from Iraq and not getting the psychological help they need? And then they go out shooting civilians and we ask why. And Vietnam vets? How did they fare?

I didn’t say anything like that to my seniors. Oh, I behave myself very well! My bf doesn’t always believe it, but as much as I can talk when you get me going, as a teacher my job is to guide the conversation, not dominate it. I only said the bit about how the American who come here for WWII have their eyes closed to everything else Germany has to offer.

The relief in their eyes, after I said that, after it was clear that I wasn’t looking at them with judging eyes I think I will always treasure. Pain is pain. It doesn’t equal holocaust atrocities. But I think the Germans have been working a long time on how to be honest and come to terms with their past. I love that about them. We will forget, us Americans, the real story first, because we won’t need to remember the little bits about taking a train to strangers to escape the bombs or eating chocolate from an American GI. We’ll forget the little details because we don’t to constantly ask ourselves what happened, who did what, what can we do now?

Later on my advanced class had to consider what would happen to society if we all lived to be 100. Needless to say, before I knew it, the class dissolved into German bashing and how German seniors citizens suck and are selfish. Of course Greek grandparents are better.

SIGH

This is my life people. I try to put them all in each other’s shoes. I can’t help it. I am a frickin bleeding heart. I poked holes in their arguments. I called the out for being selfish too. I asked them to imagine being old and lonely with no close family nearby. I considered the serious arguments they offered me and asked them why, why, why?

I know one reason why the last class passed proficiency. I taught them critical thinking. That’s my thing. Cause they absolutely need that in the Speaking and Writing part. You can’t be wishy-washy with such complicated topics.

My advanced kids were happy to come in today, they gave me big smiles and I was a bit taken aback. I want it to be a safe place, where they can state they opinion as long as they have the ability to provide some logical justification when it’s too out there. They ought to question what they hear and check what people tell them. Luckily I can cut through their b.s. With the seniors, out of respect I ignore a lot of crazy statements.

I can already see these year coming to a close and I will once again have done practically nothing in terms of my personal language studies because I will have given all my energy and effort, love and patience to the kids and seniors.

Please forgive this moment of ego. I’ve worked really hard at this and I know I’m a good teacher. Not perfect, competent. Coming soon I’ll have another class to prepare for the proficiency test and I’m so excited.

There’s more that could be said. But I’ll leave you with some classroom pics. Maybe sometime I can take some individual pics of the stories students have written that I have on my door and post them here too.

I made this little photo collage of scenes from the Rocky Mountain National Park that I took when I went hiking back with my family in August. It's a little blurrier here than I thought. I kept glancing at it all day today and it brought my mood up in an instant. The girls from the last class gathered round it at the end to look at my boyfriend and inform me he's Greek looking.

I constantly refer to my map of US states. We either talk about the size of things or I try to point out where things are located and that the US is very, very big. Now I've got a new addition of which state names come from Indian languages, because there's always some smart aleck who hopes asking my why it's called Mississippi will distract me from the lesson.

Here's my somewhat messy desk, with my new photo addition. I was too exhausted to deal with all of today's vocab and put stickers on their little notebooks, so all this is waiting for me tomorrow!

Vacation Overload

It’s my first chance to just sit around the house and wind down since I finished up the school year, July 29th. I’ve been organizing my files and uploading a lot of songs and Greek tracks onto my phone for all the travelling I’ll do around America. I’ve only been meaning to do it for the whole year I’ve had my phone! It’s amazing how long things that don’t take all that much time get pushed back.

But I’ve needed this day. I’ve got no obligations, I don’t need to be anywhere or worry about anyone. The world will not end if I stay online and catch up with what’s going on in the world.

I work hard here and I have plans next year to work even harder to manage everything I want to get done. I have never been so organized in my entire life, nor more determined to not waste my time like I have in the past. My students have inspired me to really keep my nose to the grindstone and make real language progress and work-wise I have to be on top of everything, in a way, I never knew was possible if I want to keep as much of my income as I can.

There’s an American part of me that gets defensive and feels guilty about all the vacation time I get. Not to a huge extent, I mean one of the main reasons I left the US was because I think a 2 week vacation is a sick joke, especially when you’ve got to worry about what kind of health care your employer will give you. You all can write all the articles you want to in the US about how Europe is delusional and the Euro will never survive. I don’t believe any of them for a second. It’s just a bunch of Euro-haters.

But yes, I do get a bit defensive sometimes. I can’t help it. Especially when people from America glamorize my life and verbally emphasize how exciting it is seeing new things. And it is man, it is. I don’t want to get all negative, but I’ve been to the same place in Greece loads of times now and I didn’t want to go at all this year. Oh poor me, I know. But as an expat-living abroad, I can’t repeat enough how normal it all becomes and honestly more than anything, how tiring it all is.

I live in a pretty easy country when it comes to bureaucracy, but man trying to express yourself with the appropriate vocabulary so that the authorities treat you like a competent adult, instead of a child is so ridiculously tiring. I wish every person in the world experienced a situation where someone talked down to them because of their lack of language skills.

I have fought hard to get where I am. I sat at home waitressing, doing nothing but saving up until I had enough money to get my butt over to Europe again, and not without huge support, (I lived with friends for the first 2 months).

This song reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend this weekend. We were talking about the friends we don’t have in our lives anymore and how that hurts and disappoints us both. I was mentioning how some old college classmates of mine were constantly going on about how impressed they were with what I had managed, then they kept saying they wished they could do it themselves. Then I gave them tips, but after awhile it became clear they didn’t really want to do it themselves, they just wanted to project their regret onto me.

And I’m sorry but how weird is that. Imagine for a second someone who decided not to have kids, and then talking to their friends with families about how great their families are, every single time. I mean the families would stop finding it a compliment and be like, dude, if you want some kids, go and have your own, or adopt some older ones, shut up already about mine. I get it.

I did not make life decisions to inspire jealousy or regret in other people. I made normal, boring, logical decisions about the quality of life I best enjoy.

Telling all this to my friend she reminded me how much shit I put up with trying to get something permanent in London and Greece and how devastated I was going home and how making my own path wasn’t clear at all. I had to slowly narrow down what didn’t suit me. And I was like, oh yeah, I had a pretty crappy time back then, didn’t I.

At any rate we both agreed, for better or worse we can’t control the people who want to stay in our lives. All I can do is make as much time as I can for the ones that stay in touch. Even if it means a 4 hour drive in the middle of two tiring vacations. And it means going to a wedding when you don’t feel ready or relaxed and your bf can’t come.

Pictures! That’s what I promised.

Going out at night for some tsiporo with mezedes. Below I tried snails for the first time. Lots of grit, and apparently not fast appropriate, found out afterwards.

Oh these pics do not want to be separated for captioning and I am far too stressed to sort it out.

My day of relaxing was yesterday. Today has been Stress pur. I tried. I really did. I’m fed up with all these long term projects. I won’t get into it. Enjoy the pics.