School....and food
Part I: School
Today was definitely not my finest day of teaching. I completely forgot about plans for two of my five lessons until I woke up this morning, at which point I frantically threw stuff together. I don't think it mattered that much, though. In one of the classes, the kids were really talkative when they were supposed to be, but in the other, they were soooo disconnected from the article we were reading. But the teacher wanted me to find an article on a pop star and go over it with them, so I doubt they would've been excited about anything, unless I just *happened* to pick THE pop star that they are all obsessed with. BUT, having never met the class before, I had no way of knowing who that would be - or if there were any articles about that person in English. Bah.
I felt pretty useless in my other 3 classes as well today. It seems like most of my teachers just want me to hold small conversation sessions with students during class, which CAN be great (like on Thursday last week) OR can be really sucky if none of the students want to talk and don't seem like they've done their reading homework (like today). Maybe I'm just asking the wrong kinds of questions, though. I guess we'll see.
On the bright side, next week I get to have one of my 8th forms (seniors) have a debate about abortion, which will hopefully be interesting for them. It's a fairly controversial topic in Austria, too, so hopefully they'll come up with some good arguments. I just hope that I will be able to appear semi-objective, since I'm clearly NOT. But I have until Tuesday to figure out how to do that.
Part II: Food
I did a lesson last week about American food, which went over REALLY well. I think my favorite part was when I handed out some take-out menus, and a couple groups of students pulled out their cell phones and called Jimmy John's from school, a) because that's really stupid, and b) because that's an expensive phone call to make for no reason. I couldn't help but laugh when they got a little miffed that no one had answered the phone, though. Why? Because it was 4:30 AM in Minnesota at the time. Even Jimmy John's isn't open that late.
My second food experience happened last Tuesday, I guess, when a bunch of the TA's went to this restaurant called Centimeter, and we ordered a SWORD with about 6 pieces each of Schnitzel and pork on it, plus chicken wings, chili, and fries as sides. IT WAS AMAZING. And the motto? Das Schwert: Es kann nur eines geben. Yes, that means, "There can be only one." I can't escape The Highlander, even in Austria. Thanks, Mom!
Experience #3 has to do with me trying to cook (operative word: trying). I brought one measly cookbook here with me, which is definitely better than nothing, but it's kind of difficult to adjust measurements and stuff, since everything's in metric here. Anyway, I was trying to make some recipe that called for shallots, which I then sought out at the store. So I bought some, came home, started to make my dinner, and realized that instead of shallots, I had gotten huge single-cloved (bulbed?) garlic. Gaaah. Apparently the German word for shallot is "Shallotten" or something equally as obvious, but since I hadn't seen any, I assumed that since they looked right, the scary garlic was what I was looking for. Nope! Luckily, I discovered its true identity before adding it to the pan, so I was able to balance everything out. But still. Spices and herbs and stuff are kind of difficult to know here, since they're not usually words you learn in foreign language classes. But I'm trying. I'm trying not to be discouraged into not cooking with ingredients I'm not familiar with either, though. I guess maybe I should just look them up in a dictionary beforehand to make sure I'm getting the right thing.
I guess that's about it - the only other thing is that there is no ranch dressing or good Mexican food here, but I'm not going through withdrawal yet. And they DO have taco seasoning packets and one kind of tortilla (sad!), so I can make stuff if I want. :)
Today was definitely not my finest day of teaching. I completely forgot about plans for two of my five lessons until I woke up this morning, at which point I frantically threw stuff together. I don't think it mattered that much, though. In one of the classes, the kids were really talkative when they were supposed to be, but in the other, they were soooo disconnected from the article we were reading. But the teacher wanted me to find an article on a pop star and go over it with them, so I doubt they would've been excited about anything, unless I just *happened* to pick THE pop star that they are all obsessed with. BUT, having never met the class before, I had no way of knowing who that would be - or if there were any articles about that person in English. Bah.
I felt pretty useless in my other 3 classes as well today. It seems like most of my teachers just want me to hold small conversation sessions with students during class, which CAN be great (like on Thursday last week) OR can be really sucky if none of the students want to talk and don't seem like they've done their reading homework (like today). Maybe I'm just asking the wrong kinds of questions, though. I guess we'll see.
On the bright side, next week I get to have one of my 8th forms (seniors) have a debate about abortion, which will hopefully be interesting for them. It's a fairly controversial topic in Austria, too, so hopefully they'll come up with some good arguments. I just hope that I will be able to appear semi-objective, since I'm clearly NOT. But I have until Tuesday to figure out how to do that.
Part II: Food
I did a lesson last week about American food, which went over REALLY well. I think my favorite part was when I handed out some take-out menus, and a couple groups of students pulled out their cell phones and called Jimmy John's from school, a) because that's really stupid, and b) because that's an expensive phone call to make for no reason. I couldn't help but laugh when they got a little miffed that no one had answered the phone, though. Why? Because it was 4:30 AM in Minnesota at the time. Even Jimmy John's isn't open that late.
My second food experience happened last Tuesday, I guess, when a bunch of the TA's went to this restaurant called Centimeter, and we ordered a SWORD with about 6 pieces each of Schnitzel and pork on it, plus chicken wings, chili, and fries as sides. IT WAS AMAZING. And the motto? Das Schwert: Es kann nur eines geben. Yes, that means, "There can be only one." I can't escape The Highlander, even in Austria. Thanks, Mom!
Experience #3 has to do with me trying to cook (operative word: trying). I brought one measly cookbook here with me, which is definitely better than nothing, but it's kind of difficult to adjust measurements and stuff, since everything's in metric here. Anyway, I was trying to make some recipe that called for shallots, which I then sought out at the store. So I bought some, came home, started to make my dinner, and realized that instead of shallots, I had gotten huge single-cloved (bulbed?) garlic. Gaaah. Apparently the German word for shallot is "Shallotten" or something equally as obvious, but since I hadn't seen any, I assumed that since they looked right, the scary garlic was what I was looking for. Nope! Luckily, I discovered its true identity before adding it to the pan, so I was able to balance everything out. But still. Spices and herbs and stuff are kind of difficult to know here, since they're not usually words you learn in foreign language classes. But I'm trying. I'm trying not to be discouraged into not cooking with ingredients I'm not familiar with either, though. I guess maybe I should just look them up in a dictionary beforehand to make sure I'm getting the right thing.
I guess that's about it - the only other thing is that there is no ranch dressing or good Mexican food here, but I'm not going through withdrawal yet. And they DO have taco seasoning packets and one kind of tortilla (sad!), so I can make stuff if I want. :)