GERMANY
As my time here is coming to an end, today me and Maria bought cake and other such nibbles for all the staff and did all our thankyou's and whatnot. This is because she's leaving on Monday, earlier than me, which in an act that I swear is going to become one of my permanent legacies, I'll turn up again on Monday after going through 100 heartfelt goodbyes and be all "hey there .. I'm still here."
However it has been vaguely humbling, since we both got gifts and cards and books and our official certificates and the deputy head said nice words about us both. Maria's section was noticeably longer, as a few of the English teachers pointed out somewhat symapthetically to me afterwards, but Masha is one of those crazy power Frau's who strives to do everything ever conceived ever and her german's good enough to discuss literature and current affairs, something which I tried but simply couldn't keep up with.
And then as if to prove my point, she accidentally dropped me in it by delivering a thankyou speech worthy of Oscar night. I was expecting her to thank her family, friends and the academy at any time. And then she sniffly finished gushing like an artery wound, with a tear in each eye, and looked up at me, and then slowly all 30 other pairs of eyes turned to me shit shit cock bollocks in awaiting expectance.
I think I actually opened with "Uhh, ja, was sie sagte", yeah, what she said, before I regained a little composure and managed to throw together something that just about flew. I didn't quite manage the awards night tears though.
Apart from 2 pretty sweet books, I was also given a bottle of Jägermeister which is gonna go down oh so well next tuesday when I party in the park with my students for the last time. Oh and two teachers bought me hair styling gel "to control my storm hair". Turns out they didn't even know the other one was buying the same thing. I don't know how to feel.
It's been quite a bittersweet day, really. I could actually stay here quite a bit longer.
On a less emotional note, the cake was fucking awesome. We'd actually promised we'd make a couple of salads for today; Maria was going to make a Russkie one with herrings and I was being trusted with another, presumably more boring one. We scrapped this idea in favour of cake, and we bought a kind of strudel with icing, and then a pretty huge block of, basically, apple crumble baked on top of a sponge cake.
Seriously though, salad or cake?
BUT, this was quite a late decision (I picked the cakes up at 8.00am on my free day, that's commitment for you) and since the salad idea was already quite far down the line, would anyone like to buy a lettuce off me?
As my time here is coming to an end, today me and Maria bought cake and other such nibbles for all the staff and did all our thankyou's and whatnot. This is because she's leaving on Monday, earlier than me, which in an act that I swear is going to become one of my permanent legacies, I'll turn up again on Monday after going through 100 heartfelt goodbyes and be all "hey there .. I'm still here."
However it has been vaguely humbling, since we both got gifts and cards and books and our official certificates and the deputy head said nice words about us both. Maria's section was noticeably longer, as a few of the English teachers pointed out somewhat symapthetically to me afterwards, but Masha is one of those crazy power Frau's who strives to do everything ever conceived ever and her german's good enough to discuss literature and current affairs, something which I tried but simply couldn't keep up with.
And then as if to prove my point, she accidentally dropped me in it by delivering a thankyou speech worthy of Oscar night. I was expecting her to thank her family, friends and the academy at any time. And then she sniffly finished gushing like an artery wound, with a tear in each eye, and looked up at me, and then slowly all 30 other pairs of eyes turned to me shit shit cock bollocks in awaiting expectance.
I think I actually opened with "Uhh, ja, was sie sagte", yeah, what she said, before I regained a little composure and managed to throw together something that just about flew. I didn't quite manage the awards night tears though.
Apart from 2 pretty sweet books, I was also given a bottle of Jägermeister which is gonna go down oh so well next tuesday when I party in the park with my students for the last time. Oh and two teachers bought me hair styling gel "to control my storm hair". Turns out they didn't even know the other one was buying the same thing. I don't know how to feel.
It's been quite a bittersweet day, really. I could actually stay here quite a bit longer.
On a less emotional note, the cake was fucking awesome. We'd actually promised we'd make a couple of salads for today; Maria was going to make a Russkie one with herrings and I was being trusted with another, presumably more boring one. We scrapped this idea in favour of cake, and we bought a kind of strudel with icing, and then a pretty huge block of, basically, apple crumble baked on top of a sponge cake.
Seriously though, salad or cake?
BUT, this was quite a late decision (I picked the cakes up at 8.00am on my free day, that's commitment for you) and since the salad idea was already quite far down the line, would anyone like to buy a lettuce off me?
