Freitag, 21. November 2008

This is not a real post.

I'm afraid that this blog may have been thoughtfully misconstrued by a few folks who feel the need to use words borderline incorrectly.

Pre-PS... I will post later about the Chor-fahrt, since it was absolutely lovely.

As a disclaimer, or a warning, or an ACHTUNG!

This blog is me being sardonic and witty. It's really difficult to explain yourself in a language that you don't speak really well, so I use this blog as means to... well, express thoughts. They're borderline personal, but they're also quite silly.

I hate when blogs are all la-la-la, wonderful and happy, everything is lovely. i can't honestly write something like that without feeling like an ass. I'm not trying to turn people off of Germany or even really express an opinion about Germany: I'm just profiling my year. And my year is full of triumphs and scary dreams and stereotypes and awkward class periods, moments of clarity and blinding confusion. I think all of them deserve the same amount of attention; they're what i'm feeling and what i'm thinking and what i'm doing and when i look back at this year, that's what i want to remember.

i don't want to have a picture perfect scrapbook that glosses over the hard stuff or denies the humor in watching the same four minutes of forrest gump eight times in a row. So, what I write is also truthful. So if I say English is kind of boring, than it's not because I'm not 'embracing the gift of being an exchange student', I'm saying that English is boring. I spend it making faces and drawing creatures and passing the time. Fact of... exchange. What-have-ye.

I find with each passing day that I fall a little bit more in love with Germany. I really do love this country and the folks that I call friends are starting to seem like friends. I just got back from 3 days of lovely singing and eating and being wonderfully content where I feel like I never want to go home... but at the same time, I am amazingly homesick. I've never been this far away from home (or for so long) and now that my the 'super fast' German learning is over, (i.e., from the beginning to the end of the second month, when I can make sentences and the like), I'm starting to really feel separated from my friends and family.

I read about the night of broken glass in the history book that I'm reading. While I'd heard of it before, I never quite understood the horrors until I finally poked out the meaning in stumbling German. My over-active, over-worked mind substituted my family and friends as victims. I know that I'm not alone in this happening-- I've spoken with a few other exchange students that are experiencing disturbing dreams involving their family members. It stems from not immediately knowing if something is wrong or something has happened-- I know that I would get called, but at the same time, I'm still terrified.

I am tremendously in awe of the fact that Germany has seemingly recovered from the horrors of World War II. I am terribly sorry (on behalf of America, I know) that America didn't do more to stop the horrors that were occurring on the other side of the ocean. I am not judging Germany on its history-- the people here are not evil, just as the people everywhere are not evil. The folks of Germany were dealt a rough card and have done so much to overcome it.

I am not expecting people to adjust to me... in fact, I have (already, I believe) begun to completely and irrevocably change, which is a scary sensation. School is awkward. But so is living with (what were) complete strangers. But awkward isn't bad-- I thrive on awkward. At my very core, I can be nothing but. So, I suggest that certain-commenter (and there has been more than one, honestly... I've just deleted the other comments because they were incredibly rude instead of just one giant assumption), please take things with a grain of salt. This is merely a profile of what I'm thinking, and really. It's not your place to judge.

Edited for clarity.

2 Kommentare:

Jenn hat gesagt…

I am so proud of you.

margot hat gesagt…

dear katie,

i am completely in awe of how fairly, intelligently, and gracefully you dealt with that unfair and innapropriate critism. and as another student in germany, i am also in awe of how articulate you are around everything you wrote in this post! while i'm feeling more at home here every day, i still feel (more than ever) that my thoughts are totally jumbled up by a combination of a) how tired i am, b) german, and c) this new experience and the "new person" that i, too, am becoming. i could never have been so clear-headed, not right now!

also i have been told about 50 times that feeling critical of your host country is a completely normal step in this process. and also, i don't get the impression that you are critical of your hose country from reading your blog, if it's any consolation.

zoe