This was my last week before Herbstferien (fall break). Since Germans don't celebrate Thanksgiving, they don't have a short fall break in October and another short one in November - they just go for it all at once.
It was a pretty normal week. I came to the conclusion that maybe just reading in the teachers' room all the time is giving off a bad vibe (but I came to that conclusion yesterday so the politeness parade is going to have to wait until November). I also decided that I really hate having off hours during which I sit in the teachers' room; sometimes everyone in there is just chilling and grading papers or preparing lessons, so I really don't have much to do.
I did a lesson about Halloween twice this week. It was the same teacher both times, but one class was in the 8th grade and the others were 6th graders. I taught them all to say "Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!" and "Double, double, toil & trouble. Fire burn & cauldron bubble." They thought the part about smelling feet was hilarious.
In one 11th grade class, I read a text out loud while the students did a comprehension worksheet. The text ended up taking about 5 minutes to read, and I read it twice. I was rather glad that my dad always made sure that I participated in public speaking contest when I was in 4-H; I read it off with a nice slow pace like I was Audie Cornish!
In another 11th grade class, I did a lesson about thanksgiving. I talked about food, family, football, Macy's parade, and the history of the holiday. I had fun, and I had pictures of my family from last thanksgiving, which the kids thought were funny. (My mom's eyes are half-closed in one picture. I explained that she always blinks during pictures, but I'm not sure they understood/cared.)
On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to go to the theater in Erfurt with a 7th grade class to see Der Schatzinsel (Treasure Island!). It was a German-language opera of the story, and the opera format coupled with it being a performance specifically for school kids meant that they projected the entire text above the stage (in German), which meant that I understood everything! It was really fun, except the performance went from 11am-1:30pm. The kids had all brought their lunches with them and ate in the lobby during intermission (it was a really long intermission...probably meant for lunch-eating), but I had forgot to bring something with me since I'm usually done before lunchtime on Wednesdays. (I knew I was going to this play the day before, but somehow I didn't think it through.) Needless to say, I was pretty hungry by the time the play was over!
On Thursday, I had an off day. Nothing especially bad happened, but it wasn't a great day. This seems to happen every two weeks or so - living abroad can sometimes make me feel tired, and there are moments where it's frustrating that everything is a little bit different here. Then I went to the international stammtisch and saw some friends, which made me feel much better! (I'm sure my latte macchiato's caffeine had nothing to do with that...) I also called both my parents yesterday, which made me feel a lot better. I've been calling them about every two weeks using Google Voice. International calls are 1 cent a minute, so the ten dollars I loaded to my account should last me all year (and possibly the rest of my life).
In life achievement/adulthood news: today marks the longest I've ever gone without seeing a member of my family. It's kinda sad, but nice to know that I can still feel close to them without seeing them! In more exciting news: I bought a Dr. Pepper from the Euro shop today while I was trying to decide what kind of backpack to buy. It was fizzier than American Dr. Pepper and tasted a bit different, but it was still tasty.
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