Question: am I disappointed in myself for the decided lack of posting of late?
Answer: Yes
Therefore I will inundate you all with as many as I can manage before I go to Austrian on Thursday. I’ll start with last week’s BUW. I have to first say, that is probably the least like to be hilarious name EVER because it’s spelled “BUW” but it is pronounced “buff” by a bunch of teachers trained primarily in England-style English. Therefore I am met with questions like:
What is your schedule like in the buff?
Well, I’ll probably put on some clothes first, and then I won’t really be in the buff anymore, will I?
Answer: Yes
Therefore I will inundate you all with as many as I can manage before I go to Austrian on Thursday. I’ll start with last week’s BUW. I have to first say, that is probably the least like to be hilarious name EVER because it’s spelled “BUW” but it is pronounced “buff” by a bunch of teachers trained primarily in England-style English. Therefore I am met with questions like:
What is your schedule like in the buff?
Well, I’ll probably put on some clothes first, and then I won’t really be in the buff anymore, will I?
He's in the buw!
Ok, yes, maybe a SMIDGE immature, but…well, I’m Texan (this excuse works for EVERYTHING!). So I spent a goodly amount of time with these students, the Kate Army of Champions, and I decided that on Thursday I should do something nice for them.
Interruption—You might be asking yourself “why is Kate, who is usually emotionally semi-to-insanely harsh, being nice to these lederhosen?” Well, the life of a German high school student is one of INTENSE pressure surrounding this ending exam called the Arbitur which basically determines if you’re going to have a future or not, if you can go to university, and it’s not like the SAT where you get to take it a bunch, so these kids are taking a GOLDEN opportunity to skip school and sitting in a closet to work intensely on their English exam-taking skills for a week with someone like me who is probably equally scared that she’ll mess up and cost the little wurst-chens their futures, so they deserve something nice….
Like that, but more hoopty!
A COOKIE! I baked chocolate chunk cookies. That is no small feat and included
-finding vanilla (not easy)
-coming up with an acceptable substitute for brown sugar (sugar…teachers here told me they bring over bricks of brown sugar from the States, unbelievable!)
-doing metric conversions and hoping they were right
-chunking up chocolate bars (HARD!)
-hoping that the type of oven heat I had was right (that’s a whole nother monster because you can do like 6 different types of heating)
But I win at almost everything, and I produced pale (that brown sugar DOES make a difference) but respectable cookies, packed them up in glass Tupperware (I know, it’s wrong) and brought one in to my students and the other to the teacher’s lounge where I labeled them “Sweet, Sweet Cookies of Democracy.” They were appreciated, and within a few hours all the cookies were gone save one the student left. I asked “who’s eating this?!?!” and T., one of the girls, responded “we thought you should have it.” Awwwww! I hope I don’t screw up your education, kiddos! I’m starting to like y’all!
-finding vanilla (not easy)
-coming up with an acceptable substitute for brown sugar (sugar…teachers here told me they bring over bricks of brown sugar from the States, unbelievable!)
-doing metric conversions and hoping they were right
-chunking up chocolate bars (HARD!)
-hoping that the type of oven heat I had was right (that’s a whole nother monster because you can do like 6 different types of heating)
But I win at almost everything, and I produced pale (that brown sugar DOES make a difference) but respectable cookies, packed them up in glass Tupperware (I know, it’s wrong) and brought one in to my students and the other to the teacher’s lounge where I labeled them “Sweet, Sweet Cookies of Democracy.” They were appreciated, and within a few hours all the cookies were gone save one the student left. I asked “who’s eating this?!?!” and T., one of the girls, responded “we thought you should have it.” Awwwww! I hope I don’t screw up your education, kiddos! I’m starting to like y’all!
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