[expletive deleted] - Ms. F

In my 10th Honors class, we read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and Moliere's Tartuffe, two examples of satire most commonly taught in the classroom. The kids loved 'em - I mean, how can you not love reading the piece that started dead baby jokes and a piece about a horny, hypocritical religious zealot?!

To make a smooth transition from satire to the heavy political pontifications of John Locke and the influence of his philosophies on the Declaration of Independence, I decided I should bring in the modern-day Grand Master of social/political satire: Mr. Jon Stewart. America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction was the perfect bridge between exploring satire in the modern era and introducing my students to Locke and the Declaration of Independence.

I was totally stoked about my brilliant, fail-proof lesson. My students were going to learn a crap-ton and they were going to split their sides with laughter while they were doing it. However, if you've ever even briefly looked through the book, you know it's full of obscenities, abortion jokes, and naked supreme court justices among other things, so I knew I had to clean up what I presented them. Thus, after I copied the pages from the book which, oddly enough, I found on the base library, stamped in enormous letters "PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY," I pored over the text, making sure to cover my arse by blacking out F-bombs, nudity and any other words that could get me in trouble, such as "Con-shit-ution."

When I finally presented the carefully edited Jon Stewart learning packet, my kids absolutely ate it up. They had never had so much fun learning the foundations of American democracy.

As I was reveling in my instructional brilliance and how proud their parents would be that they had learned about "our great country," as the buzz phrase is here, one student raised his hand in excitement.

Student 1: Ms. F! I love how they say Thomas Jefferson died!
Me: What? Where is that?
Student 1: Page 80. *snicker*
*Pause*
*two students in corner snicker knowingly*
Innocent Little Girl Student 2: Ms. F? What's auto-erotic asphyxiation?

If I get fired (if it's possible to fire an indentured servant who doesn't get paid), I had better get at least a good blurb on the Daily Show headlines.

OMG.

German Kezboards

I hate them. Sorrz if zou get an eßmail-post-message that looks something like this. The kezboards in Germanz all have different characters in different spots so sometimes iäts hard to tzpe ß especiallz if iäm have a limited amount of time, as right now. The worst is trzing to sign in and use the @ sign, which would look like this " if i didnät take 5 minutes to get the correct kezstrokes. Anzwho...gotta jet. Iäve onlz got less than 2 minutes...

Prost!

The vauge term "fest" is sprinkled all over Vilseck-area promotional material. Towns hold them. Community organizations hold them. And since churches hold them, I assumed there couldn't be too much fun going on at these so-called fests. Which is why I was puzzled at the reaction I received when one of my students found out I hadn't been to a fest yet...

"You haven't been to a fest, Ms. Fokken?!"
"No. What do they do at them anyway?"
"You go and get drunk and ride rides. It's the best!"
"And churches condone this...?"
"Yeah. They do here. They're all Catholic. What do you expect?"

It's been about a month since I had that conversation, and I've been to plenty of fests since. And they are indeed good times. That said, a good fest must contain the following things:

1. Bier. Pils. Weisen. Whatever you want to call it. In 6 gallon mugs.
2. Picnic Tables. In the States we use them for sitting; here, they use them for standing on and singing on and dancing on. I love it.
3. Crepes. (Bounus points if they have the Banana/Nutella option.)
4. The World Cup song. I have no idea what the words are besides "Zwie und tausand sechs" (2006), but people go nuts when the bands play this song. Literally everyone is up on the picnic tables, singing and swinging their beer steins along with the music. In any given night, the song will probably be played at least four times, and it never gets old!
5. Bratwurst with mustard. Delish.
6. Tables of people shouting "Prost!" (Cheers!) for no apparent reason and clinking mugs with whoever happens to be near them at the time.
7. A great live band that plays all German music, but whose final set consists of all of the following songs in English:

• "Manic Monday"
• "I Will Survive" (Germans LOVE it.)
• "YMCA"
• "Celebration"
• "Johnny B. Goode"
• "What's Up" (That 4 Non Blondes song...you know it.)
• "Shout"
• "99 Red Balloons" (In both English and German.)
• "Hang On Sloopy"

(All of the bands play these songs! Even the church fest bands. True story...just kidding. Unless you think I'm not.)

Verdict on Oktoberfest: Over 6 million people from around the globe partake in Oktoberfest. It is the biggest party in the world, so it's bound to be great times, and I'm glad I got to experience the spectacle. However, I'd have to say that the smaller festivals I've been to have been by far and away more merry. ;)

I've got pics up on my Flickr account of Oktoberfest and Nurnberg's Volkvest, and pics from the Vilseck fest that took place pretty much on my front step are coming soon!

Loaded God Complex

My first lesson 10th Honors: The Koran.

Dylan: Oh my God! I would never want to teach that on a military base. I would say something to get myself in trouble.
Kari: Like what?
Dylan: Like the word "Koran."

I figure I've got myself covered though. The book is in the prescribed DoDDS curriculum for my 10th Honors class. All teachers in DoDDS who are teaching that class are supposed to cover the Koran. Some, for obvious reasons, just choose not to.

Mighty craic!

Dublin was a savage time (as the Irish guys we met would say), but before I begin gushing about how awesome it was, let me address the one thing I know you guys are just dying to know:

No, I did not meet Bono. (Or anyone esle in U2 for that matter.) They are currently in London working on a new album with Rick Rubin. AH! I could go on a tangent about how stoked I am that they are working with this genius producer, but I'll spare you. ;)

Another thing you should know...my camera battery is still out of commission, so I didn't get to take as many pics as I would have liked. (Sorry Bobby! I'm bummed too!) But Dylan got TONS of shots from the bars, which are always the most fun pics anyway, so I'll post them as soon as I get them from her!

Dublin was simply incredible. Everywhere we went - which was mostly a bunch of bars - we met interesting, fun, and deliciously obnoxious characters who loved to entertain us with their thoughts about our president and regale us with hilarious stories about American tourists.

Irish quotes of the week:

"So you're from the States, living in Germany, and holidaying in Ireland? I guess I'd say I was living in Germany too if I had Boy Georgie for my president." - The cabbie

"So you're school teachers, eh? You all aren't nuns are ye? I had nuns for teachers when I was in school...evil bitches." -The cabbie

Dylan: Kari wants to try absinthe.
John Paul from Cork: Kari, let me ask you two questions. Have you ever had sex and not wanted to?
Me: No.
John Paul from Cork: Have you ever had a baby and not wanted to?
Me: No.
John Paul from Cork: Well, if you drink absinthe, you'll probably do both

Irishman 1: Where in the states are you from?
Me: Iowa.
Irishman 2: Ottawa?
Me: No, Iowa.
Irishman 1: Isn't Ottawa in Canada?
Me: Yes, but I'm from Iowa.
Irishman 2: Ohio?
Me: NO! Iowa.
Irishman 1: Iona?
Me: Iowa. I-O-WA. *makes W with fingers*
Irishman 2: Iola?
Me: I'm from Arizona.
Irishman 1: Well why the fook didn't you just say so?!?!

John Paul from Cork: (To Dylan) Are you two together? *points to Kirk*
Dylan: No.
John Paul from Cork: Oh. Because you look good together.
*Dylan and Kirk laugh
John Paul from Cork: I would look good with you *points to Dylan. And I would look good with you *points to me. But I would look even better with both of you.

"I was holding a beer bottle in my mouth, and when it fell out, well...you can't waste beer, so I had to choose between my teeth and my beer." ~Rich, on how he chipped his front tooth in half

"You, my dear, are mighty craic." ~John Paul from Cork to me ("craic" pronounced "crack" and referring to my general state of bad-ass-ness.)

Besides chilling at Temple Bar, Messrs McGreggor (sp?), and tons of other bars I can't remember, we also checked out these places:

• St. Patricks Cathedral (yes, THE St. Pat, kiddies)
• St. Catherine's Cathedral (whose choir took part in the first Messiah)
• The Post Office Steps (where the beginnings of the IRA take root
• Trinity College (A world class university. I felt a little out of my league when I set foot there until I remembered what Samuel Beckett said about the students after having taught there a year..."The students at Trinity are the cream of Irish society: thick and rich."
• The Book of Kells. (The world's oldest illuminated manuscript. It's ornately written copies of the Gospels recorded by Celtic monks around 800 AD. The colors in the book are from materials that were imported from coutries all around the world. In freaking 800!)
• The Guinness Storehouse. (The tour itself was rather ho-hum, but the end of the tour was incredible. After you've learned more than you want to know about brewing Guinness, you enter the Gravity Bar, a Bar at the top of the Storehouse with a floor to ceiling 360 panoramic view of Dublin. You get to soak in that view while sipping on a complimentary Guinness.)
• Tons of U2-ey crap. (And I didn't drag them to it either, it was stuff we just stumbled upon! Swear to god!) We sawU2's old Windmill Lane studio, where they recorded The Joshua Tree. (OK, so I dragged them to that one.) We stumbled upon The Clarence Hotel, which is owned by Bono and The Edge. We saw the Bonovox hearing aid store where Bono got his name. We tried to get to their current studios at Hanover Quay, but we were blocked by construction. So what were they building? A new U2 studio. It's going to be the tallest structure in Dublin, and will house the recording studio at the very top.
• Dublin Castle and the Castle Courtyard that held the lake that gave Dublin it's name. (Dublin means "Black Water", which is what happened to the lake after the Vikings dumped a bunch of remnants from pillagings in there. The Vikings dubbed it Dublin and it stuck. At least's that's what the tour guide told us...)

Even though we saw lots, there were TONS of things that I still would have loved to see, so I will make a return. Not this semester, but sometime. I absolutely MUST visit the Irish Writers Museum. (Yeats, Joyce, Wilde, etc...heaven for a literary freak.)

Travelin' sol..er...civilian

Long time, no talk, kids! This no internet thing is killing me. And not just because I can't compulsively check Facebook anymore. I never realized how much I relied on Google until I didn't have it right at my fingertips. There are so many times when I want to find lesson plan ideas, check out maps or just research places I'll be visiting and the only way I can do that is if I take a 20 minute hike to the train station and pay 1 euro for every 10 minutes. (FYI 1 euro = $1.29. Ouch.)

Another thing you have to pay for: a place to pee. Nurembergurg (which is where I went this past weekend - more on that in a bit) the going rate is .50 euro. Even in MickeyD's you have to pay about what you'pay for a small order of fries. Ridiculous.

Cool things I got to do this week:

1. Had NEA President Reg Weaver serve me brats and hear him speak at a Vilseck American High School Faculty/Staff meeting at a local pub/soccer club. (For those of you non-teacher types, NEA is the National Education Association. Its 2.8 million members make it the largest teachers' union in the nation. In other words, he's a pretty big deal. And he spoke to us in a private Vilseck faculty/staff social!) He was a big, boisterous, black man full of energy, passion and charisma. Although my life as a professional has been pretty short (umm..two weeks?), sipping beer and chowing on brats with other teachers and listening to this man speak ranks near the top of the coolest experiences I've had.

2. Saw Hitler's Nazi rallying grounds in Nuremberg Germany. Before actually stepping foot on the rallying grounds, we (i.e. me, Anne, Dylan and her friend Kirk who is doing his student teaching in Hanau, Germany and who will probably be tagging along with us a lot this semester) went on a tour through a museum that documented how the Third Reich was able to rise to power and gave the history of the construction of Zeppelin field and the surrounding buildings which were where the Nazis held their annual national rally. In the museum, there were original copies of architectural drafts for the grounds, Nazi propaganda posters, life-size posters of some of the most famous photographs of Hitler and the rallies, short documentary films, audio and video commentaries from people who were Nuremberg Nuremburg during the yearly rallies, and tons of other media that gave me a better understanding of the historical background and planning that went into constructing the rallying grounds. After the going through the museum/documentarium thingy, we walked on huge marching path that Hitler had built just to showcase the size and strength of his army as they marched onto Zeppelin Field. Once we arrived at Zeppelin Field, we climbed the steps where Hitler's high ranking officers were seated during the rallies to the podium and stood where Hitler once stood to address his adoring masses. I literally got shivers thinking of all of the hate that had once been gathered at that field. It was easily the most chilling moment of my life.

3. Wandered around the beautiful city of Nuremburg all day. We saw bustling open-air markets and gorgeous cathedrals and fountains dating back to the 1300's. We people watched, window shopped, snapped some pics, drank some beer (OK, a LOT of beer...), talked some politics and sang some karaoke before stumbling back home to our beds awaiting us at the Let 'em Sleep Hostel.

4. Book my plane tickets to Dublin and Rome!

5. Got a new nickname. About 4 girls stopped by to say "hi" to their favorite teacher (Mrs. Thornbrugh), whom apparently they dubbed "T-Dawg" during soccer season when she was the assistant coach. "T-Dawg" introduced me to the girls saying, “This is Miss. Fokken, and she'll be student teaching with me this fall. The girls heads kinda cocked sideways and they quinted their eyes and they all said, "Miss Whaaa.. Miss Fah-ken?" Then one girl pointed and laughed and shouted, "Dude! It's T-Dawg and F-Bomb!" Great. LoL!

P.S. As I'm typing this, I can hear some HEAVY artillery shells from the training fields at Grafenwoehr. I can hear them just about every night, but tonight is especially loud. So loud that my windows are rattling. On some nights, I can look outside my window and see bizarre spinning lights, aircraft, and the flashes from the artillery. It is truly eerie. But at least I have the luxury of comforting myself by reminding myself it's only practice...

6. Walked around on the top railing of a belltower in Weiden. Freakin' scary. The Vilseck High students got to go on field trips for the first two days of classes. Half of the students stayed on post for one day while the other half went to one of three surrounding cities - Nuremberg, Amberg, or Weiden - and then on the next day, the students who stayed on post gtravelede and the ones who had travelled stayed on post. I got lucky. I got to go off post both times. On the first day, I went to Nuremberg and saw basically everything I had seen the previous weekend, but I learned a TON more when I went with the students. (And I think I got the subway system figured out too...I hope.) On the second day, I went to Weiden and got a tour of an incredibly gorgeous cathedrals with a breathtaking cobalt and gold celestial mosaic on the ceiling. (Germans do churches right. I can't wait to check out the churches in Vilseck. And I can't wait for Christmas in the churches in Vilseck!) Then we got a private tour of the city's bell tower. At the end of the tour, we all got a 360 view of the city of Weiden and the surrounding small-ish mountains when we walked around the railing on the top of the tower. The view was definitely worth a bit of anxiety.

For some reason, the pic posting option on blogspot isn't working for me, so if ya wanna see pics, you'll have to check out my Flickr link at "Mien Fotos." I've got lots!

In another time, in another place

Good GOD I was going through hot and heavy internet withdrawal! I'll warn you now, this is going to be a pretty chaotic post since I'm feeling kind of high and shaky now that I'm getting my long-deserved internet fix.

I wanted to post pics on my first post, but I'm pretty sure I blew up my supposedly dual-voltage battery charger for my camera. Yeah, not so good. Fortunately, I didn't kill the $100 battery and I was able to buy a compatible 220v charger at the PX. Now it would just be nice if I could get my hands on some scissors to open the frickin' thing. (Another thing I blew up: my transformer. No blow-dryer or straightner for me for now. Even though I'm semi-digging the low-maintenance thing, I'm getting rather sick of sporting the curly hair.)

So what's Germany like? Pretty much exactly like a fairy tale. Everything is absolutely gorgeous - from the bright green fields to the lush pine-tree forests lining the bahn. And the houses.... AH! They are all red-roofed and painted bright colors with tons of potted plants and sunflower gardens and red, pink, purple, yellow and blue flowers spilling out of the all of the windows. And the beer...the beer is just as good as they say it is, kids. I'm pretty much in love at this point.

On the base shuttle from Munich to Vilseck, I was lucky enough to meet a couple who teaches at the same school where I'll be teaching. They've been living in Germany for the past 7 years, and lived in Japan for 9 years before that. Once they learned that I was embarking on my first overseas experience, and that my cooperating teacher wouldn't be in town for another couple of days, they immediately took me under wing. They invited me out to their favorite little German restaurant tucked away in a hamlet just outside Vilseck. Then, the next day they took me to Amberg, a larger city just 20 miles from Vilseck. Let me tell you, I was kicking myself for not having my camera with me! They showed me the Old Market area, explained the German public baths and mineral spas (guys and girls together and naked and sniffing scented oils...not something I'm willing to try...yet...(?)), showed me the smallest motel in the world (which has a great story that I'll share once I go back armed with my camera!), and took me to yet another restaurant where we dined al fresca on the cobblestone plaza.

After 3 days, I *finally* met my cooperating teacher, Tracy. She gave me a fridge and a microwave to put in my room and is lending me a bicycle to use while I'm here. She is such a sweetheart - a mom away from home - and her husband is a kill! She's all like, "Is there anything you need? Tell me what you need, and I can get it! Just let me know!" I'm really looking forward to working with her - she's got such enthusiasm for the subject and she sincerely cares for and respects her students, and they love her back for it!

Oooh! And I met two girls from Northern Arizona University who are living together in my hotel and are doing their student teaching on the same base where I'll be doing mine! When we first met, I felt pretty cool because they thought I was a grad student. (Then I realized that I was old enough to be a grad student was still a lowly undergrad, and then I didn't feel so cool anymore.) Anyway, those two girls - Anne and Dylan (who is actually a grad student) - are quite the jet-setters. They've essentially been everywhere in Europe, and Dylan has been to many parts in Asia. They were pretty stoked to have another travel partner, and I was stoked to have *a* travel partner (well, one my age anyway!), so it all works out!

Dylan asked me whether I had any plans for Labor Day weekend, and I told her that I didn't, but that we had to do something at least mildly amusing because my birthday was on the 1st. "Well," she said, "you're not staying here alone on your birthday, so it looks like you're going to Dublin with us." Freaking Dublin! ON MY BIRTHDAY?! Is there any better way to spend my birthday than throwing back some pints at Temple Bar? I think not.