EuropäIsCH?

Hmmm, kleies Dilemma. Für wen bin ich denn nun bei diesen Europameisterschaften? Gestern hab ich doch irgendwie mit der Schweiz mitgefiebert aber so wie als Bellinzona gespielt hat (Aufstieg in Serie A) und wir alle in der Piazza rumgeschrieen und uns umarmt haben, war es dann doch nicht...

Jetzt gibt es jede Menge Leute, die ne Schweizer und ne Deutsche Flagge raushängen. Aber was machste dann, wenn Deutschland gegen die Schweiz spielt? Soll ich mich dann doch für das neutrale dritte, Italien, entscheiden?

Bis jetzt hab ich erstmal gar nix rausgehängt und irgendwie zweifel ich dran, dass ich das überhaupt machen werde. Schliesslich ist das Fussball!! Interessiert mich doch eigentlich gar nicht. Aber bei dieser Flaggenmasse kommen einem doch irgendwie Gedanken... also häng ich ne EU- Flagge raus und jubel jedesmal wenn ein EU-Land ein Tor macht? Aber was is dann mitter Schweiz?

Also Schweizerin will ich ja nicht werden. Nachher würde mich noch jemand mit den Deutschschweizern in einen Topf werfen. Hilfe! Ticinese wäre natürlich was anderes, aber leider gehören sie ja zur Schweiz. Also ich fühl mich einfach als Europäerin, gar nicht so sehr als Deutsche oder so.

Komisch, mit Bellinzona kann ich mich voll gut identifizieren, ich wohn halt hier und liebe die Stadt, und das Tessin auch, aber alles hinter dem San Gottardo ist mir eher unheimlich- unsympathisch. Leider immer und immer wieder. Fängt mit den Schweizerdeutschen im Zug an, die immer alle herumkommandieren wollen (z.B. "Fenster zu, ich hab (ja, sie sagen tatsächlich ich HAB) kalt!") und geht über die täglichen Erfahrungen in Locarno bis zu den Deutschschweizern, die hier frech auf Schweizerdeutsch reden ohne mal zu kapieren, dass das hier kein Mensch versteht, denn wer hier Deutsch als Fremdsprache lernt, lernt Hochdeutsch.

Also, dann doch lieber EuropäIsCH!

Herumgerittert?

Ah, Bellinzona, Stadt der Reiter und Ritter? Satz aus dem letzten Literaturgeschichtstest:

"Dann ritterte er zuruck zu Rundetafel von Artur."

(Mein Photo!)

Raterunde: Was war wirklich gemeint?

RE?

Ich hab grade ein "RE" gesehen! Hier in Bellinzona, mitten im Winter! Verrückt! Ich war grade auf dem Weg einen kleinen Spaziergang zu machen- die Sonne schien so schön auf den Schnee- da fuhr es an mir vorbei.

Mein Spaziergang war ziemlich rutschig da die Strassen irgendwie alle gar nicht gestreut waren und in der Sonne der Schnee getaut und teilweise auf der Strasse wieder gefroren war. Eigentlich wollte ich rauf bis zum Castello Sasso Corbaro aber aufgrund der Unfallgefahr bin ich dann über Montebello wieder runtergeschlittert und durch die Stadt nach Hause geschlendert.

Da kamen mir auch zwei entgegen die ziemlich Deutsch aussahen und die Frau meinte dann zu ihrem Mann "Da siehste gar nix." Hörte sich ziemlich nach RE an. Hehe. In Bellinzona sieht man um diese Uhrzeit wirklich gar nichts weil die Sonne so tief steht und alles spiegelt. Zuerst hab ich gedacht, ich frag die ob das ihr Auto war aber dann hatte ich doch keine Lust...

Ich musste schliesslich grade zwei Wochen lang kein Deutsch reden und hab viel Italienisch gelernt. Ab morgen muss ich dann ja wieder jeden Tag Deutsch reden... Meine ersten Weihnachtsferien als Lehrerin sind vorbei! Jetzt müssen wir die letzten Arbeiten schreiben, Noten machen, Konferenzen usw. Aber in vier Wochen gibt's schon wieder Ferien- Karneval! Da will ich unbedingt für eine Woche nach Vigera, aber weiss noch nicht ob das klappt!

Il film più bello

Ecco, il mio film preferito tedesco... per tutti che non credono che ci possono anche essere film tedeschi che sono bellissimi!!

Bailamos!!

Am Freitag war ich auf dem Lateinamerikanischen Festival. Zusammen mit einer Schweizerdeutschen. Und da wurde mir wieder ein bisschen bewusst, warum ich eigentlich in den Süden gegangen bin. Während vorne auf der Bühne die Tänzer und Sänger vortanzten, dass es ein Riesenspass war mitzumachen und ich mich auch sofort ins Gewühl geschmissen hab, stand das Mädchen einfach nur da und machte negative Kommentare. Aber die Leute aus Bellinzona tanzten und versuchten das nachzumachen, was uns die Sänger auf der Bühne vormachten. Kinder, Jugendliche, Mütter, Männer und auch ältere Menschen, alle hatten sie Spass.

Und wer hatte keinen? Und warum? Ja, es stimmt, es gibt in der deutschen Kultur diese Tendenz sehr schnell negative Kommentare über etwas zu machen anstatt sich einfach mitreissen zu lassen. Man muss sich immer kontrollieren. Leider ist das so. Nicht unsere Schuld sondern Werte, die von Generation zu Generation getragen werden. Und während ich oft zwischen Schweizerdeutschen und Deutschen keine Gemeinsamkeiten finde, war es in diesem Fall doch so.

In Münster haben Isabel und ich ein paar Mal versuchte eine anständige Salsaparty zu finden. Aber ausser dem grossen Lateinamerikanischen Karneval auf dem ich mit Pierre war, habe ich so etwas nie mehr gefunden. Bis auf Freitag Nacht in der Piazza del Sole. Und wenn das Mädchen nicht stocksteif neben mir gestanden hätte und statt dessen einfach mitgetanzt hätte, hätten wir sicher bis spät nachts getanzt und einen Riesenspass gehabt. Aber so hatte ich nach einer Stunde genug. Leider.

La mia prima settimana

Well, I did it. My first week as a teacher is over and I am proud of myself because I didn't get sickening nervous. Sometimes when I was on my way to a job interview I'd get so nervous and anxious I felt like throwing up. But I did good this time. The trials are over and all I have to do now is do my best in class.

The kids in German class are still a bit impatient and talk to much but we're getting there. The only problem they have is that sometimes they don't get what I explain the first time and that gets them all upset and panicked. I tell them to calm down, I will explain at least three times (I try to speak only German) and if there's still someone who hasn't got it, I ask one of them to explain in Italian. But basically they're good kids and I enjoy teaching them.

The first and the third class on the other hand are much easier to teach but the first class is definitely too quiet. The third class, however, is fun to teach, because they understand a lot and they are also a bit more creative. There are also two or three girls who are very ambitious. And then I have a student from town coming in who is almost as old as me and very sweet and friendly.

Well, I have been reflecting for some time and these are my goals for the next two weeks:

- improve discipline in German class
- do things even more calmly
- relax, you're doing fine
- make first class talk more
- reread all schedules of the previous teachers
- learn all names
- reserve more time for explaining tasks and don't get upset if they don't understand
- in hallway ask one or two of them how they are doing (every day)
- relax, listen to a CD
- stop thinking of school when you're trying to sleep

The other thing is that I can't get rid of the feeling that this is too easy. There's got to be a problem coming up or something. It is not a very good feeling and I hope I'm only imagining things. Maybe I'm only still a bit scared of it all?

My head knows...

So now that I have taught for a full month I will have a supervised lesson tomorrow, uffa... They do that every four weeks to insure that the quality of the lessons don't diminuish. In theory that's a good thing if only it didn't make me so nervous!!! I finally felt quite comfortable in the classroom and quite enjoyed teaching and my adrenaline level didn't quite get up so high any more but I already slept less well tonight and I keep thinking of revising my lesson plan for tomorrow worrying that it is too short or too much repetition etc... I hate when I do that because all the feedback I have had so far has been absolutely positive and my students have told me several times that they are quite happy with the way I teach. So there's really no reason at all to get anxious or to worry. A classical case of "my head knows but my emotions are stronger"...

Well, my parents will arrive on Friday and they will stay until Monday! The weather's supposed to be sunny but not as great as it has been. I'm up at Vigera right now and Sunday we did an hour or two climbing the river bed of the Ticino, which is still pretty small up here (the source is in the mountains of St. Gottardo) and runs in a sort of a canyon. We found some rocks that seem to be fossils and lots of sandy beaches and fish. Yesterday we went for a hike up to Carì, through pine woods and rocky fields and little huts and fountains. I got so tanned up here I can't imagine getting any more tanned in summer!!!

Anyway, later we will return to Bellinzona and Nico's aunt will bring her bunny which will stay with us for two weeks because she is moving to another house. Today I also had an email from my penpal Marta. She writes to me in German and I write her in Italian and we help each other correcting mistakes and learning about the other's culture. She is from Rome but lives at Florence. Writing in English I keep thinking that soon I will need a tandem partner who speaks English because I can definitely see how my English deteriorates. I used to be able to speak and write like I did in German but now it's really difficult not to use Italian grammar and words...

Geht doch!

Heute vom Pruefungsamt gehoert, das Zeugnis sollte jetzt in ein bis zwei Wochen doch endlich ankommen. Hab auch meine Endnote erfahren was mit ner eins vorne dran!! Yay!!! Spring durchs Zimmer!! Ich bin dem boesen Zweierfluch entkommen!!

Heute auch wieder Berwerbungsgespraech gehabt in Lugano in einem ziemlich zugigen Hotel (zitter). Das hat zwei Stunden gedauert und ich musste auch ein bisschen Englisch unterrichten. Zum Glueck hat mein Gehirn das diesmal kapiert und kein Misch-Masch aus Italienisch und Englisch gesendet. Nur als ich dann wieder auf Deutsch wechseln wollte, hab ich aus Versehen Italienisch geredet. Uffa!

Ohhh, und in vier Wochen kommt schon die Anke, freuuuuuu!! Und danach meine Eltern. Und danach hoffentlich noch die Sylvana, die Birte, die Isabel, die Caitlin... noch wer Lust?

Le mie parole

Si, sono a Zurigo ancora una volta. E una città simpatica, ormai tutti parlano un tedesco stranissimo. Ogni volta che sento svizzera tedesco penso delle cose brutte è così duro. Si dice che tedesco non è una lingua bella ma davvero dipende quale tedesco. Penso che il mio tedesco di Muenster sia davvero bello perchè non suona così dura, non usiamo la "R" e non amazziamo la "CH". Però c'é una lingua più bella che si chiama italiano. Quella mi piace così tanto che ora non ho voglia più di tornare in Germania e parlare tedesco.

Invece per il mio inglese mi preoccupo. Ho ancora paura di perderlo. Lo capisco ancora come il tedesco e leggerlo è faccilissimo però se provo di parlarlo mi vengono sole le parole italiane... beh, le parole sono ancora qui solo non hanno voglia di uscire per un po' di tempo... però le parole sono mie e se vorrei per esempio posso dire "parole" in tre lingue diverse. Woerter, words, parole. Posso fare così con quasi tutte le mie parole. E posso scrivere le posts in tre lingue anche. E oggi avevo voglia di usare le mie parole italiane anche se la maggiorenza di voi parlate tedesco o/e inglese...

Quaranta

Ok, here's something that's really scary. Lately I went to Zurigo and there were two girls who looked kind of lost at the stamp vending machine. They spoke English and for those who don't know it I used to travel to the US every summer for quite some years and in the end I felt absolutely no difference between expressing myself in English or German, in fact people used to believe that I was from another part of the US and didn't even realize that what little had remained of my accent was foreign. I used to be so proud of having learned English so well after my teachers at school had told me I had absolutely no talent for learning languages. (In fact I had to repeat 7th grade because of-- tadaaahhh, English and Latin--how ironic is that???)...

However, so there I was with those two kind of lost-looking girls whose every word I understood and I asked them "Can I help you?" Oh, they were sooo relieved and grateful because all the explanation on the vending machine was in German, French and Italian but then I wanted to explain to them how it works. So I stood there and I wanted to tell them that shipping a letter to South Africa was 1,40 CHF. But, ohhhhhhhh!!! I got so far as to tell them it was "one". Of course I had no clue what CHF is in English and that really didn't bother me, I simply said "franchi" like they say in Italian. But then I wanted to say 40. And, can you believe it? A enormously HUUUUUUUUUUGE "QUARANTA" was written all over my brain. I think I blushed. Desperately, in my head I began to count "ten, twenty, thirty..." but then there was the

QUARANTA

again. I swear, I was completely, utterly, helplessly unable to say "forty". I didn't not only remember "forty", it even felt as if "forty" had never been saved on my hard drive. I wanted to die of shame right there... Then, it got even worse, I wanted to explain why I was having problems speaking English when I first sounded like a native speaker and I could not for the life of me remember the word "learning". Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, aiutooooo! What is happening to me? Also, whenever I talk to someone on the phone, no matter if it is in English or German, I cannot refrain from saying "si" instead of "yes" or "ja". Is it possible to lose a language? But then how strange is it that I can still write in English but speaking don't work? And how am I going to teach English when I am apparently losing it? Hellllllll---p!!!!

Verbania

Allora... heute sind wir mal rechts am Lago Maggiore langgefahren bis Verbania (It). Ma ohhhhh, che bello!!! Durch den Nebel schien der See wie ein endloses Meer obwohl man die Berge am anderen Ufer noch sehen konnte. Alles schien irgendwie transparent und unwirklich. Die Strasse war eng und zwischen Felswand und See eingequetscht und wenn ein Bus kam dachte man, "Incidente!" Und dann Verbania, enge Gassen und Passagen, Boegengaenge und Innenhoefe und oh, ja, die obligatorische bunte Waesche, die auf eine Schnur gespannt zwischen den Fenstern baumelt.

Ecco, es gibt sogar eine Schule fuer Englisch in Verbania. Ich werde da auf jeden Fall mal fragen wegen Arbeit. Gestern habe ich von einem Lehrer gehoert, dass in Ticino viele Sprachlehrer besonders fuer Englisch und Deutsch gesucht werden. Mal sehen wo ich naechstes Jahr lande...

Unusual friendship

I always start to ponder things when I'm tired. Last night there was a full moon and I hardly slept at all. That is unusual in itself as I have been sleeping pretty darn well here ever since I threw away that piumone horribile. I also had to get up at a number that started with six, ohhh!! My thoughts today were about friendship. What a strange thing that is. Three months ago I talked to someone on the internet mostly in German... three months later I feel so at ease with this friend and he has taught me his language and shown me the most beautiful places of the Ticino. And sometimes I think how weird that is.

There are so many things that speak against us being friends. For once, supposedly friendship between men and women don't exist. We also speak different languages (at least we did in the beginning as we never speak German together) and are from different cultures. And lastly, he's five years older than me. But then with true friendship all these things become so unimportant.

Which makes me wonder what is that thing that we call "friendship"? If it's not in the words, not in the things you have in common (culture), if it's not in the communication (language)... where do we find it? Is it a in-between-thing or is it above all of these things? How have we managed to do this? Did we build all this on meta-communication? I once read that only 5% of what we communicate is actually communicated using words, which would explain how we managed when I hardly spoke a word of Italian. (Which still doesn't explain how he tolerated my abuse of the language... :)

But meta-communication is tightly bound to culture. And that leaves another gap between us... how did we build this bridge? With what? I have written my Master thesis about culture and the concepts of Edward T. Hall and Geert Hofstede. That was inspired by my experiences in the US. All in all I have lived about two to three years in the US. I must say having read almost everything about culture and how they differ and how you define them, I still feel unable to grasp what it is. There are some variables and knowing them helps a ton if one moves to a foreign country... but my favorite metaphor is that it is a slippery piece of soap. If you grasp it to tight, it slips away. But that's also the magic of it. And maybe the same thing is also true for friendship...