parked outside the building. Strange. A lot of the election posters I've been seeing around are for the woman it's promoting: Katharina Feike--SPD candidate for the Bundestag seat from the district that includes Greifswald. (OK, maybe not exactly a German celebrity, but a Mecklenburg-Vorpommern one.) Anyway, I didn't really think too much of it, but when I came back to the dorm, this lady who greatly resembled the woman on the posters came out and got in the car. I half-smiled at her. She half-smiled back in what I imagined to be a acknowledgment of my presumed recognition. "Yeah," the smile said. '"I am who you think I am." I have absolutely no idea what she would have been doing in a random dorm in Greifswald (she came out with one of those clothes-carrying bags, but that doesn't give me much of a hint).* The whole encounter doesn't exactly equal the experience I had a year ago of seeing (let me catch my breath)...Ralph Nader...but nevertheless: Katharina Feike sighting at Makarenkostraße 48A.
The other exciting news (arguably even more thrilling than the last), is that I'll be going to Norway and Sweden! I have a break at the end of October which, with weekends and other days off, ends up being fairly lengthy. I'm still trying to figure out exactly where I want to go in Sweden, then I'm going to meet up in Norway with Hildegunn, an awesome exchange student from high school. She'll show me around the city where she's studying, and her hometown, and some other reportedly cool sites in the southern part. I'm super-excited! Um...and keep getting distracted from writing this to do Sweden research. It must have been over an hour ago that I wrote the rest of this paragraph.
"Project Week" at my school has been a little disappointing. I'm working with a class doing projects on Greifswald and was envisioning whole-class fieldtrips to areas/sites/museums/libraries in the town, which would have been really cool to take part in. But they're actually each working in small groups (or in pairs, or alone) on individual projects, so there's really nothing for me to do. I've been using the time to go over all the teaching material that past TAs have left here, so it has been productive. It's also been quite interesting, as I've come across articles and statistics on stuff like the lack of boys in post-high school education, why boys don't succeed as well in traditional classrooms (and thoughts on gender-segregated education), teen sex rates in various countries, and the history of abortion (and related laws). Great stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to help this kid make a map of the city in English (?) and maybe help a group of girls who are considering (at the strong encouragment of the teacher, who wants to put me to good use) translating their project into English. On Friday, all the groups will give presentations on their topics, so that should be fun to watch.
Went for a bike ride last Sunday along the Ryck (river that goes through the city and empties in the "Wiek") and saw more of the harbor area. It was a warm, sunny day, so lots of people were out riding bikes and fishing. I rode around some neighborhoods, saw a church, and found (quite by accident) a beach! A nude-friendly beach, as it turned out. Maybe I haven't been to enough beaches in America, but I don't think you'd encounter naked people at one not specifically designated as "nudist," would you? Made me wonder. Anyway, it was really nice there, so I stayed for quite awhile, reading Atlas Shrugged and eating grapes from a fruit stand I had found earlier.
Speaking of fruit and things that make me happy: delicious pears for 0.79 cents/kilo at Lidl! A bargain even on a budget! I'm gonna have to go back for more.
--------------
*Maybe she's actually a stunt-double. It would explain the clothes-changing. Also, do those clothes bags have a name? I can't figure out what it is.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen