Post Modern Colonialization

Volunteering at the Elementary School has easily become one of my favorite, though most tiring, parts of the week and this week was especially fun because I was able to bring in some American candy for the kids to try.

They tried smarties which they thought were good but sour, tootsie rolls which they thought tasted like caramel more than chocolate ha ha, candy buttons which they loved but kept trying to get every bit of paper off the back of it, and some old time wafer things that one girl claimed smelled like smoke after you licked it ha ha









Frau Schumacher played a game with them after we handed out the candy and the winner got extra pieces so they liked that. This was called Jaeger/Hase or Hunter/Rabbit. When she said Rabbit, they ducked and Hunter, they jumped up. She would try to confuse them and any movement if you were supposed to stay down, like for more than one Rabbit in a row, resulted in disqualification! Intense...








They are cute little monsters though... :)

Lucas was a mess that day, he had chocolate on his face and ink on his nose ha ha :) But they had a math test that morning and I sat next to him to keep him focused, didn't tell him the answers though, and he did really well. He's smart, he just needs to focus... He apparently asks Frau Schumacher everyday now "Kommt die Debby heute?" "Is Debby coming today?" :) That made my day when she told me.



This is a group of children hyped up on foreign candy... good thing they had recess next ha ha :)




Felix was telling me how he knows the word for Frieden, Peace, in English and was giving the peace sign :) I couldn't help but laugh.

I know Frau Schumacher enjoys having the help and it has really become the most rewarding part of my experience here... it's definitely making me realize I would miss teaching and the classroom setting in my life, I want to pursue it back in Milwaukee.




Well that's all for now, I'm headed to Hamburg eeeeearly tomorrow morning for the long weekend with Alyssa, Ben, Kent, and Cassandra. Should be exciting, I've never been to Northern Germany :) I'll post on Monday for sure.
miss and love
d

Reflecting

For some reason, a strange mood has hit me and I've decided to reflect on a lot of things in a blog post... Maybe it'll help to get it all out in to words and I don't have a journal here with me, sadly. I should probably buy one.
Regardless, here goes.

This mood started a short while ago as I was looking at my old roommate's profile on facebook... it feels like forever ago that I was sharing a room with her but it was only a few months and just last semester. For some reason, the memories I have of that last apartment and semester are imprinted differently than previous years. It feels like a waking dream almost. It's as if I woke up from a really long dream and remember flashes of it, but no details. I can't recall what Meg and I talked about when we were going to sleep... but I do remember the sounds outside my window, like a comforting lullaby, comforting only because of its familiarity. I remember standing in front of the balcony door in the middle of the night, having gotten up for some reason, and without turning the lights on just watching the wind move the trees and the snow come down during the storm, but I can't tell you what side of the door the handle was on. It's all a vague blur for some reason, which is startling because I was trying so hard to remember every detail as it happened because I knew it was my last semester.
Then I started to think about how this, this semester in Bonn, is my final semester. I saw a picture of Madison earlier on newsfeed and it made me miss being there in the Spring semester very badly. I think the pain, the missing, isn't coming from literally wanting to be there right now... it's more like I'm trying to begin to part with that era of my life and realizing it did go by just as quickly as everyone said it would... and that I didn't listen. I didn't do enough, didn't take enough chances, didn't live enough adventures. I have great memories but, like most people, I wish I knew then what I know now... to stop worrying about the little things and maybe stay out later with friends instead of studying for a pop quiz.
I think I took things like spending the last semester on campus or walking at graduation with a grain of salt and I shouldn't have because I would have liked, very much, a picture of me in a cap and gown on Bascom Hill and, sadly, I will never have that. Conversely though, I want to preserve the memory of my Grandfather at Jenny's graduation and hope he would have looked as happy if he would have made it to mine. That was one of the last times I saw him and I don't think I could make it through a day that reminded me that much of him without being sad.

Maybe this is all coming from a place of fear too because now I need to "grow up", not that I haven't in the process of the last 5 years, and find a job, find a life... build a life rather. Scary. Where do I even start?
Maybe with finishing my homework and going to bed...