Truth, mostly truth, and statistics

I know this blog is supposed to be about Germany. But see the thing is, I teach about America (and various other non-Germany places) and learn all kinds of cool, interesting, just-waiting-to-be-shared-with-someone facts. And without my lovely ex-roommates here to listen to me jabber about them, you, my collective blog readership, are going to have to become my audience.

My work at the school (see? now I'm writing about JMG in HGW like I'm supposed to) is really quite interesting because the subjects I teach are so diverse. In a three-day period last week, for example, my lesson topics included: "green" taxis in New York, South African geography, the Irish sport of hurling, language and culture in the southern U.S., using a dictionary, and the Loch Ness monster. And because my status as an English native speaker doesn't actually make me an expert on anything and everything related to English, I end up doing a lot of basic (i.e. Wikipedia) research. And also lots of looking-up statistics. And thereby find out stuff that's just very fascinating!

Like that math is by far the best-liked subject in American high schools. In a Gallup Poll, math received 23% of the popular vote. The only thing to even come close was science, with 14%. History and English got 10% each, and the other subjects fell in line behind this. P.E., for example, got 8%; art and music got 5% each. And foreign language? 3%. This (here comes the Germany connection) is drastically different than over here. The 9th graders I presented this to were all shocked. Math?! Why? They liked art, music, P.E., and English. History and literature were OK, too. The preferences of my students were reflected in national findings, as well. Interestingly, this seems to be part of an international math-liking/hating trend. The better students in a given country do at math, it seems, the less they tend to like it. And Americans, as the link will tell you, are pretty bad at math.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/8248/report-card-teens-favorite-subjects.aspx

For this same 9th grade class, I'm doing a lesson next week on crime. I'm planning on showing the trailer for Bowling for Columbine (if I can get a projector), a clip from a documentary on gangs in Los Angeles, and giving them some stats on American/youth crime. What blew my mind while doing research for this: crime has dropped CONSIDERABLY since the early-mid 1990s. Between 1993 and 2003, the rate of homocides committed by people aged 18-24 dropped by 37.5%. For people 14-17: 67% drop (my calculations from some Justice Department graphs). And victims of nonfatal firearm-related violent crimes? About 1,250,000 in 1994. By 2003, they'd slid to under 500,000. Unbelievable. And why? One of these charts had the release dates of Playstation and the Grand Theft Auto video games superimposed on it. All, of course, after the downward trend had begun. So maybe this video game violence-real violence correlation doesn't even exist at all.

Because I figure maybe you need a break from statistics, and because I mentioned this in an earlier entry and said I'd give a follow-up: I ate an eel! In sandwich form. It was really good--a little fatty, maybe, but lots of fish are. It was smoked, so it just tasted like smoked fish. Hm...now I kind of want some...

I haven't been doing a whole lot that's exciting to report. I got re-obsessed with studying Spanish, so I've been doing that through a couple computer programs. And I actually sat in on the 7th grade Spanish class yesterday! I was invited by the kids of the 7A, which is one of my really great classes. I was also invited to French, and one of the students already got permission for me to come, so I suppose I'll sit in on that once. It's a strange role to play, not being fully student or fully teacher. One of my 8th grade classes is being temporarily taken over (until Christmas, I think) by education students from the university who are getting in some practice. Most of the presentations are on American history, so I'm planning to attend out of curiosity, even though I won't have to do anything. The first one was yesterday. It was weird--I was watching someone of my same age do basically the same thing I do (though in a foreign language for her), but was seeing it from the outside. I wasn't just watching as me, I was watching from the perspective of a teacher and as a student and as an American and as a German. As someone who was new to this particular class myself, but not as new as the students presenting. As someone who's an English native speaker, but who has also given presentations in a foreign language. As the only American in a room of people speaking English and talking about America. Interesting, most definitely.

I like the 8th grade a lot. And the 7th grade. 9th is good, too. Totally not what I expected.

Last week was a rewarding one. I went into my Tuesday lessons feeling really unconfident. Kind of stressed, questioning my teaching abilities, etc. But the lessons actually went quite well...at least, no one started snoring during the lesson on South Africa, which had been the primary concern. This week's been good, too, but I've hardly had any lessons. Probably half have had tests or other things going on for which my presence or preparation was not needed.

Maybe that's been enough of a distraction to come back to more stats. To ease you in, I'll make this one Germany-related. Greifswald, my own fair town, has been declared the bicycle capital of Germany! A whopping 44% of Greifswaldians use the bike as their regular means of transportation (way of getting to work or school is I think what they're measuring). A quarter drive a car and another quarter walk. Perhaps the most surprising statistic of the whole report: only 2% use public transportation. Very strange for a German city.

Another fact I learned while doing crime research: there are towns in the U.S. with mandatory gun ownership laws. Yes. And "townS" was not a typo; the are more than one. There are so many problems with this, I don't even know where to start. So maybe I just won't.

Instead, how about South Africa? Did you know that, even though English is the language of business and government in South Africa, only 8.2% of people speak it as a first language? Afrikaans is more common, and Zulu, Xhosa, and a few other tribal languages even more so. All in all, South Africa has eleven official languages. That's got to be a record or something. Didn't look that up, though, so I don't know.

I know it's not yet Thanksgiving, but Christmas plans are already in the works. Itinerary includes: Christmas Eve and day in Leer, 2nd day of Christmas (also a holiday in Germany) in Quackenbrück, then on to Amsterdam, Ghent, Brugge, some small towns in Belgium, and Luxembourg. Oh, and before all this: Mallorca! Pretty excited. German markets and activities here are starting soon, so that should be fun. And I've been informed that Germans regularly eat duck around Christmas, so I guess I'll be making a vegetarianism exception for that meat-related food experience. When in Rome, right? Oh, and I'm playing with the orchestra (actually just a small version of the orchestra) at a concert we're doing in December with a youth choir from a nearby town. We had the rehearsal last week, and it was amazing! The piece is Mendelssohn's "Von Himmel Hoch," which is apparently sung frequently around Christmas. There's a lot of brass and a LOT of singers, so the sound is unbelievable. And the choir was so good! They sang a capella a few times to practice certain parts, and I was just in awe. To play in the middle of all of that....simply wonderful. Or maybe not so simple. I've got to practice that last movement...

Happy Thanksgiving to any reader who will be celebrating it! Eat some stuffing and pie for me! And a roll, green bean casserole, and cranberries. Maybe I can manage to make some mashed potatoes myself. Yams and turkey aren't necessary anyway.

Here's your fee-ord!: A Travelogue

As a general rule, I don't think it's good to believe that things happen "for a reason." I mean, in a scienfitic sense, sure, but I'm talking about the feeling that the events in your life happen because they were "meant" to. I'm probably offending many religious and optimistic people here, and I realize that there are definite psychological advantages to believing in some sort of predestination. Nevertheless, I find such a position dangerous. Saying that what happens was "meant" to happen can be used to dismiss valid emotions, gloss over serious social issues, and ignore (or even legitimize) injustice. But sometimes, things just work out so nicely that it seems they can hardly be the exclusive work of "Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men." At least, such were my thoughts as I stepped off the train in Geilo.

Geilo was a snow-covered town in the mountains of southern Norway, an unplanned stop on my way from Bergen to Oslo. The train I was riding was fully booked and I didn't have a reservation, so I had to get off as the train approached capacity. Best thing that could have happened. I walked for a few hours around the town, across the river (flowing, despite snow and the partially frozen lake it was connected to), into the mountains, up hills to solitary houses where everything was still, but multiple sets of footprints indicated that life continued to exist. When it comes to aesthetics, I'm a fan of the red-white-black color scheme, so I found the combination of the red houses (of which there were a lot), black rocks/railroad tracks/mountains/what have you, and white snow quite beautiful. Staggeringly beautiful, for Misty and anyone else who had Schultz.* Norway in general reminded me somewhat of Austria (but with a lot more water), and that's what I kept thinking of when I was in Geilo: particularly a stop I made in Innsbruck on a similarly snowy day. I had debated about whether to stop or just keep on going toward home, but once I was there, I just walked around for hours thinking how unbelievably pretty it was. That was Innsbruck, and that was Geilo.

I had so many other great experiences that were kind of chance ones--things I didn't plan, or things that just turned out better than I had hoped. Starting with my train to the airport, actually. I flew from Germany to Stockholm, but there's no airport in Greifswald, so I had to first take a train to Lübeck. And I almost missed my stop. Like, this close to missing it. It wasn't the main Lübeck stop, it was one on the outskirts. They didn't announce the name of the station (they always announce the name of the station!) and it just looked like a platform in the middle of nowhere (no airport in sight), so I hesitated before getting out. Right as he was pulling away, though, the engineer heard me ask someone else where we were, and he stopped the train for me! I had to run all the way to the back, because we we'd almost cleared the platform, but I made it out. That was the first case of good luck.

In Stockholm, I met my first CouchSurf host, who turned out to be awesome. We had an adventure right off the bat trying to get me a subway pass--for some reason the machines weren't working and the station workers didn't seem to believe us/know what to do. But he got me through and we eventually got it worked out. There was another guy staying with him at the same time, a really funny, talkative guy from Poland, and the three of us had fun discussing culture, conservatism, and types and tendencies of Swedish girls. We went to a nightclub, which was playing recorded standard pop in one room with a live country-rockish band in another. Our Polish friend was a really great dancer, so he was a lot of fun to watch (and try to dance with). The next day, my host and I toured the city. And watched some Swedish TV, which was actually American TV with Swedish subtitles. So it goes in Europe, I see.

Göteborg was next, and I had great luck with my CouchSurf host again. On the first day, Sara and I went to this exhibit that included recordings of dead/dying languages. Both of us language enthusiasts, we enjoyed it a lot. There was one language that sounded like the people speaking were just saying the same sentence or phrases over and over, kind of chanting it, but the translation showed that they were all unique sentences. And another one involved a lady trilling "Prrrrrr" at the end of every sentence! After that, we went to a cozy little cafe that was named after the home of Pippi Longstocking (a Swedish creation) and walked around town for awhile. We talked, baked a cake, ate some spiced salmon (and the surprisingly good sauce that goes with it), and went to bed early. The next day, we did more city-touring and found a really big (3-story!) second-hand shop that we spent a long time browsing. I bought a hat! I had no idea at the time how useful it would soon become.

Before it happened, I was looking forward to my night train trip to Luleå. I had a real book, an audio book, hours of NPR podcasts, and an ability to sleep in train seats, so I figured I'd be fine. However, my iPod battery was dead from the get-to, and I just couldn't get myself into the novel. Eventually I fell asleep, then the sun rose enough to look at the scenery, and the book got somewhat easier to follow. So I survived. But it was a long 19 hours!

Luleå, it seems, is a great place to go for summer hiking or a variety of winter sports. It's way up north in Sweden, not quite past, but pretty close to, the Arctic Circle. Definitely in very-short-days-and-Northern-Lights territory. I met up with a guy I'd contacted on the CouchSurfing website and he told me about all the great stuff you can do in winter and summer. But I was there in the fall. Kind of a purgatory state, but I still had fun. I spent most of my time at the old "church village," wandering among the old cabins that people used as a place to stay when they made the long journey into town on church weekends (apparently not every weekend...much too far to go). There were also some larger houses, many of which seem to be permanently inhabited. At least, I could smell food, see lights in the windows, and hear piano music coming out of them.

Another night train took me from Luleå into Norway (by this point, it'd been awhile since I'd had a shower; the hat's first duty was to cover up my terrible-looking hair!). The transfer I had to make in Östersund turned out to be another nice gift from chance (or maybe the kings and desperate men who run the railroads?). In any case, I had a little time to walk around the city as the sun was rising. I tried a Swedish cinnamon roll, which had be highly recommended in Stockholm and Göteborg. Sara had assured me that it was not like an American cinnamon roll. It was different, but turned to be still too much like a cinnamon roll for my taste and also had this weird Beigeschmack that placed it alongside the so-called Scandinavian "carmel cheese" as something that I don't really care to try again.

Once in Norway, I met up with Hildegunn and had a fabulous time traveling with her. The weather was fantastic pretty much the whole time we were together, so we got to be out in the Norwegian countryside a good deal. The first day in Trondheim, she showed me the sites and took me to this rotating restaurant in a tower that overlooked the city. The view was amazing, the pizza was good (after performing the surgery needed to make it vegetarian), and we sat from afternoon until nighttime as Trondheim spun around imperceptibly. The next day, we took a bus up into the mountains (actually merely hills, as I would later find out) to the building where most of Hildegunn's classes were. I accompanied her to a class (or the first half of the class...then I got bored and went to explore the bookstore), and we walked back home through neighborhoods and farmland. I guess it was cold, but it just felt fresh. Despite the country's heavy involvement in the oil industry (and thus partial responsibility for the smog in cities around the world), clean mountain air is what I'm now going to associate with Norway.**

A night bus (I'm now an expert on these things!) took us to Nordfjordeid, Hildegunn's hometown. We drove around on the scary really-just-one-lane-that-they-try-to-tell-you-is-two roads that cut through the mountains (actual mountains now!) and saw the fjord that the town is named after. I found it hard to believe that nowhere else in the world has a fjord coast like Norway, but if you look at a map, it's true. The western coast looks like someone started to push it through a paper shredder, but then pulled it out before much damage could be done. The "damage," though, is nothing like damage. More like supreme gorgeousness.

We saw the fjord from a different perspective as we took a ferry south to Bergen. Another coastal, mountain-surrounded city, Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. It had more of a big-city-feel than the third-largest (Trondheim), but was still small enough to be somewhat "towny." The highlight of the day was the trip up the mountains, from which we had a spectacular view of the (opposite) mountains, fjord, and city. A good event made even better by the train ride up with three American tourists who fit the bill of "American tourists" to a tee. When one of them (a 50-some-year-old man) asked contemplatively: "Why do they call them fingernails and toenails?," I laughed audibly.*** When he later mused that his fingernails were dry (as opposed to "wet"), then started taunting his wife with his dry fingernails, I about lost it. Fortunately, they were oblivious to my amuseument. In typical American-tourist fashion (I know, I've been part of these groups), they were blissfully unaware that were talking at a volume several times that of anyone else on the train. I don't know what it is about Americans, but our voices sure do carry.

The rest of the day in Bergen were relaxing: pizza (yeah, not so "Norwegian," unfortunately) at a restaurant in the afternoon and the Norwegian version of "Dancing with the Stars" at Hildegunn's sister's apartment at night. Throughout this whole trip, I was really excited about the languages and all the connections I could make between Norwegian/Swedish, English, and German, and then between Norwegian and Swedish themselves, once I had had exposure to both. I talked with many of the people I met about the relationships between the Scandinavian languages, and it seems that a Norwegian and a Swede could converse relatively effectively, each in his own language--perhaps in the way an Italian would talk to someone from Spain. When I was watching TV with Hildegunn, she'd say every once in awhile, "He's talking in Swedish." The TV station didn't bother translating it, so I guess they assumed everyone could understand all right. I think that's so cool. As far as I can tell, the only thing an English-speaker can understand without lots of training is English. Granted, there are several types of that. The 11th graders have started reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and it just sounds so ridiculous to hear the play (which is transliterated to reflect a southern U.S. dialect) read with a German/British-English accent. But I digress.

After Bergen was my unintentional stop at Geilo and some unintentional communication problems with the CouchSurf host I had lined up for Oslo. We never did meet up, so I had to find a hostel once I got to Oslo, which actually worked out just fine. I did some cold and rainy sightseeing the next day and spent the night in the airport from which my plane was to leave the next morning. Sleeping in the airport was much better than it sounds. It was really quiet at night--almost deserted but for another group of students who came in, fortunately after I had already claimed a comfy couch to sleep on! By far the best airport for spending the night that I've ever encountered.

So the next day I flew back to Bremen, then rode back to Greifswald. The whole trip was wonderful, but it felt so nice to get off the plane in Bremen. I've spent maybe 8 hours in Bremen in my life, but nevertheless, it felt like I was coming home. Bremen meant Germany, which the calculator tells me has now been my home for 2.973% of my life. Guess I've managed to make myself a decently comfortable nest in this little griffin's forest here.

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*Also for Misty: one of the English teachers pronounces "obviously" "obVIously." Doesn't she know you're not supposed to accent the "vi" but the "b"?!

**Perhaps to atone for its oil sins, Norway's very supportive of electric cars. I saw two while I was there. I don't think I'd ever seen one in real life before! (Which, now that I think about it, is really sad.)

***This loveable threesome is also responsible for the title of today's blog entry.