All throughout the German language course Saturday morning I kept thinking that the grammar my teacher was going over was too easy for me and that I should transfer to a more advanced level. Then we had to open our mouths and introduce ourselves, and the realization that I have absolutely (or at least almost) no vocabulary under my belt or in my head hit me square in the face. Worse: we had to read a short passage from the textbook and then translate it into English. I started to think that perhaps I should drop down a level instead. Or two. Maybe I’ll just ride it out for a couple of weeks.

I like my teacher. That’s an improvement over the angry (and smelly) Romanian from this summer. She talked about being a girl during the Berlin Airlift, jumping up and down on the mounds of rubber at Tempelhof with excitement when the one plane would tilt its wings to let the children below know that it was going to drop chocolates with tiny parachutes down to them. I almost always like people who can share stories from the Cold War. I wanted to shrink her and put her in a tiny box for my desk and make her jump for joy every time I lifted the lid and dropped a Hershey’s kiss down for her.

I especially liked how she introduced herself and then immediately admonished us not to pronounce her name “like Americans.” Now that’s the German efficiency (and domineering) I can get behind! Ah, we shall see, no?

All throughout the German language course Saturday morning I kept thinking that the grammar my teacher was going over was too easy for me and that I should transfer to a more advanced level. Then we had to open our mouths and introduce ourselves, and the realization that I have absolutely (or at least almost) no vocabulary under my belt or in my head hit me square in the face. Worse: we had to read a short passage from the textbook and then translate it into English. I started to think that perhaps I should drop down a level instead. Or two. Maybe I’ll just ride it out for a couple of weeks.

I like my teacher. That’s an improvement over the angry (and smelly) Romanian from this summer. She talked about being a girl during the Berlin Airlift, jumping up and down on the mounds of rubber at Tempelhof with excitement when the one plane would tilt its wings to let the children below know that it was going to drop chocolates with tiny parachutes down to them. I almost always like people who can share stories from the Cold War. I wanted to shrink her and put her in a tiny box for my desk and make her jump for joy every time I lifted the lid and dropped a Hershey’s kiss down for her.

I especially liked how she introduced herself and then immediately admonished us not to pronounce her name “like Americans.” Now that’s the German efficiency (and domineering) I can get behind! Ah, we shall see, no?