First school days

Hello! I'm updating, finally.

Today was my fifth day of school (third real day) and it went pretty well, despite the fact that I had my first gym class. I was surprised to find that almost all of the people in my class are ridiculously nice, interesting in talking to me, and extremely patient with my German. The teachers are much more formal with us than I am used to, and are generally very quick to resort to English. I already have a strong dislike for my German teacher, but the others all seem perfectly nice despite their formality. My chemistry teacher reminds me strongly of Mr. Burke, which makes me feel, strangely, very happy.

The reason I dislike my German teacher is because when we met yesterday, our conversation went something like this:

German teacher (in German): Oh, you're back.

Me: Ja.

German teacher (in German): Who's going to win the presidential election?

Me (in German, not understanding the word): The... presidential election?

German teacher (in English): President! It has the word in it!

Me: Oh! Barack Obama.

German teacher: Ich hoffe. (Implying, of course, "If he doesn't it will be because of people like you.")

Later in the class I asked if I have to buy the German book, or if I can get it from the school. The German teacher said (in English, of course) "The others must buy it, but for you there's no point. You won't understand it anyway." What a bad attitude! When I recounted this story to Regina, she said menacingly, "Wie heißt der Deutschlehrer??"

I have met many nice people. I usually sit with a very nice girl named Corrina who lets me copy her notes because the teachers all have the same indeciferable handwriting. I have met another girl named Anette who said to me cheerfully on Friday, right before our last class, "Hast du Französisch? Ich muss zu Latein gehen. Schönes Wochenende!" I really wish 15-year-olds in the US bid each other farewell with "Have a beautiful weekend!"

This is certainly a generalization, but I find that German teenagers in my school are very mature and take school very seriously. When someone has not done their homework, they are spoken to very sharply. When the teacher asks a question, at least ten hands shoot up. Everyone does the work. It is very different from school in the US -- and my school has kids from 5th grade to 13th. It also has, like, three orchestras and three jazz bands and three choirs. And a restaurant. It's really scary, actually.

I have been hit with some homesickness this past week. Starting school has been very stressful for me, mostly because it is like a whole other "culture" to get used to. And also, having to listen to Deutsch every day is exhausting! And although this is probably really unfair, since I have been here only three days, I feel like the teachers really treat me as an inconvenience, and like it is my own fault I haven't learned German yet. It's also hard to be in a class of kids, however nice, who have been in the same group for every class since the 5th grade. They are obviously very close, and I don't think I will ever bond with them that much. However, I am trying to look at school in a positive light, and realize that I am there to do my best, meet some people, and improve my German, stress-free (not really.)

I talked to Alisa about this this weekend, because I was worried that this homesickness flare-up is not normal after over a month here in Germany. She said that she felt the same way during her exchange last year, and that she thinks it's incredibly normal due to my starting school. I hope that this will pass, and I will get more comfortable with school after a couple more weeks.