Frohe Weihnachten!

Its winter, its cold, i'm home, already bored and my family is grating.......

And i couldn't happier, Xmas....is......awesome!

So Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy New Year! Now here's a picture of puppies

Süsssssssse

Bis nächstes Jahr! 

I'm fast tiring of this...

Now its not the lack of communication, the way they expect me to constantly have something 'spontaneous' to do, or even the way they'l dump a whole classes on me...weekly...and expect me to teach/occupy them just because they can't be arsed to.
No....thats just standard german rudeness/inconsideration...im used to it and i forgive it because its basically a cultural thing....not to mention these teachers are busy and i dont expect them to make to much effort.

BUT....what i can't stand anymore is the lack of respect. If they're are going to treat me like another member of staff...high expectations, awkward silences and all, then they should act accordingly when asking something of me.

You can't just sit back, expect me to be professional, take your lessons for you, and provide and endless resource of learning materials, then turn around and talk to me as if i'm one of your pupils....as if YOU'RE the one doing ME the favour.

Thanks for staying late and looking after my class Ali, now fuck off..you're late for another class...lateness is unacceptable

I suppose its the bullshit that's getting to me the most. Today is an excellent example, having shown up early for a lesson I proceeded to wait in the staff room, hoping to find the teacher I was supposed to be 'assisting' (a word so misused it has lost all meaning)

I waited until the bell rang and nothing. So I proceeded to the classroom and joined the pupils who were also waiting for their teacher....10 mins later the teacher strolls in and informs me i'm not needed today.

I know what you're thinking, but no it wasnt the blunt lack of communication or even an apology for wasting my time that pissed me off.....no im used to that crap....its the bullshit excuse the teacher used which somehow managed to pin the Schuld on me

"Oh Ali I was looking for you in the Staffroom...that's why I'm so late, where were you?"

WHAT! I was in the staffroom 10mins before the lesson started sunshine, if you were indeed looking for me (and you weren't) you didn't look very hard now, DID YOU?!

Thats what i should of said...instead i said something along the lines of..

"Oh my bad, what the fuck was I thinking, coming to a lesson on time and prepared, I should have of course received your message telepathically " 

(ok so it wasn't quite that sarcastic but you get the picture) 

Oh the bullshit....and it goes on, as everybody's favourite Betreuungslehrerin sent me another charming email again today. 

As well as asking me to check some of her work for her (which of course I don't mind doing at all) she then followed that up with the very patronising....

"There seems to be some confusion as to when you are leaving, term ends on friday....remember you already know you have to talk to me if you want to leave early"

I love the way she asks for a favour, that follows it up with an instruction even a six year old would find patronising. In fairness, it would be a perfectly fair request, if not for the fact that I already cleared with her exactly when I would be going home back in...oh...lets see...OCTOBER!

It really doesn't get much clearer than "I'm leaving 22nd Dec"....and the fact that I already went ahead and cleared this with all the other teacher's.....well its fucking laughable that she'd even ask...let alone in such a fucking disrespectful way.

So, yeah i'm ranting again and in fairness not all the teachers are this infuriating, just most of them...but better to vent here than in the school i suppose 

In the staff room, with the baseball bat

Il end this post/rant on a lighter note; the several really nice things that happened to me recently. 

One of my Klein students gave me some xmas chocolates this week, another told me that she'd miss me over the xmas break, one of my Oberstufe (worried i wasnt coming back) begged me to teach his class next year and then the class unanimously  agreed I was the best English teacher in the school and to top it all my CAE class recently informed me i'm much better than last years assistant (who is often spoken about in the staff room as being some sort of teaching saint) 

All of that was really nice, and meant a great deal...and really its only the kids opinions that I care about, since i'm making the most potential difference to their lives.

Besides fuck school, i'm to Köln this weekend to get drunk off my ass x

So ready for Weihnachtsferien...

I'm going to start this post by saying i love germany, i really do, but it takes its toll

After  a lovely relaxing weekend of pretending i'm not getting ill, Maastricht, drinking excellent beer and smoking some excellent somethingorother,  i'm now back to reality on a Monday.

And reality has hit HARD, impacting like Graham Bowman's fist on another unsuspecting waitress

We can't keep letting him do this..

Speaking german all day/night is tiring...and because its winter i'm slowing down like many a german pensioner. Thus my German has officially turned to crap (2 months progress down the drain) 

Im getting a cold, and its starting to destroy me from the inside, resulting in greater reduction of my mental faculties - ali go stupid(er)

The snow has its benefits, but its a lot more fun when things get cancelled and you can play in it....of course the fun police won't be letting that happen in Germany anytime soon 

Standard walk to work in Aachen

So im dreading tomorrow and the standard "make reading comprehension...watch it fail" scenario and instead absolutely jonesing for merry old England, proper snow related fun and complete lack of responsibility. 

Of course i'm just moaning, and by the time friday rolls around and im knee deep in Glühwein and Aachen Allemania then i'l have forgotten all about how shit the week may/or may not have been.

Nevertheless, the blog is basically an outlet for my ranting anyway, so il moan for now....besides i got a letter today from GEZ, which is essentially the same as the TV Licensing wankers in Britain, except it applies to Radio, and they count everything as being able to receive radio...mobile phones, computers, fridges, labradors 

EVERYTHING! And they are threatening my Mitbewohnern and myself with a hefty fine unless we pay up whatever bullshit fee we owe..

Fortunately we have decided as a WG to follow the "fuck it, let's wait and see" approach to these letters, until as Dan put it..."the police and GEZ come knocking at our door"....an event which im whole heartedly looking forward to.....

Unfortunately this is not what i meant earlier by the German "Fun Police" 

(see thats how you be sarcastic germany)

Sarcasm....the highest form of expressing your german disdain

There was a time when i  believed the germans didn't understand  sarcasm. A time when sarcastic response to say, a german pointing out the obvious would immediately be met with confusion...or worse

German: the sky is blue

Me: How observant of you

German: Your right, I am very observant, thank you for noticing

Nevertheless, it has lately come to my attention that the Germans do understand sarcasm, or rather that they understand their own particular brand, which is used almost exclusively to convey spite and what a shitty day, week (or 1939-1945) , they are having

Z.B the word toll (good) is used almost exclusively in a bitter sarcastic sense, much like jawoll (the enthusiastic ja as i call it)

Teacher: Ok you're taking the class today, because i dont feel like it

Ali: but i'm only the assistant, i'm not prepared

Teacher: toll.....(lifeless face)

Ali: ok maybe I could do something, spontaneous

Teacher: das wäre wunderschöne.....(lifeless face)

Ali: erm everything alright?

Teacher: jawoll.....

Ali: right then...vielen Dank

the list could go on but there's no real need, because as I write this, I am reminded that I am simply pointing out what has become obvious to most, that the majority of (ok so not all just mostly older generation) Germans are bitter, humorless and wouldn't know a hard days work because they're already to busy filling out Complaint form b6-325 "had to work beyond lunch time today-therefore couldn't go home and eat cabbage or watch Bauer sucht Frau....also there wasn't enough pickle on my Müsli this morning"

Everyday this blog becomes less of a recording of my experiences and more of a rant....maybe its for the best (und daher wird es vielleicht witziger? Egal!)

Wer ist dieser Sherlock? Das macht kein Sinn

Luckily the irony is lost on me...... 

kein Bock

So lately i haven't been posting much, because i'm really lazy and any kind of writing seems a chore to me...
Nevertheless; i have say to that if i see one more weird german pupil try and sneak a stealthy sandwich bite during one of my lessons again i'm actually going to piss myself laughing.....then maybe il beat the crap out of them with their baguette, gotta keep them disciplined.

I see you, you sneaky bastard

In other news ive bought more tabacco, and it turns out vanilla and cherry combine so well....shame there's no fuckin menthol filters in this bloody country.....

Also lessons have been going well lately.....especially the one where we played taboo (2 hours of cutting out freakin cards) but it was worth it for 20mins of joy on their faces. 

Bochum this weekend, i'm buzzin for it...until next time reader...

for crying out loud...that's not even subtle

.....on a serious note today we remember....wear your poppies with pride

Possible Dissertation Topic:

'The Myth of German Efficiency';

how the fuck did it start and who keeps spreading this bullshit?

I've already written like 500 words on this, i could easily stretch it out to 10,000 after another 7 months here....

Changing the topic, outside of work things have been going really well here. Just got back from Düren, was in Düsseldorf a few days before..TWICE..its been awesome
- i'd write more but im feeling lazy, but expect more juicy blog entries in the next few days as i sit hopefully altbier in hand, with a bit of free time and creative inspiration. In the meantime I say tchüss bis später!

also fuck knows there's no way i'm choosing to write a dissertation next year, haven't got the patience for it...even though the paper would be the dog's bollocks. Gott sei dank i get the choice at Leeds
x

Unexpected events

So apparently "Paul the World Cup predicting octopus" - is dead

bet he didn't see that coming

awful and out of taste jokes aside, this story brings up an important theme of today - it was well random

I took my first lesson today since the Herbst Ferien, and my god was i unprepared....what little prep i had done turned out be corrupt on my usb stick (Microsoft Word strikes again!). So what did i do, for this lesson i was supposed to take, on a book ive never read, with notes that i couldn't print...
I BLAGGED IT! as you do and it went surprisingly....well actually.
I fuckin love it when that happens.

And then i had to teach this Cambridge Course thing, i was dreading it. Once again general german lack of efficiency resulted in total disorganisation; no textbooks, no classroom, no idea who my pupils are.
The Referendarin (trainee teacher) then turns to me and says, "not enough pupils signed up, so we are team teaching this lesson" (oh you bet your ass we are)
followed by, "have you prepared anything for this lesson...no?....well neither have I...can you lead?"
Great! Then Ali will just have to wing it again...so i blagged some speaking discussion about movies (i felt like talking about inception for some reason

BUUUUUUUUM....BUUUUUUUUUUM

...it may have been relevant to the course, fuck knows.

The point is, it went pretty well considering.
And just when i think my long day is over.....i get invited to join the english teachers conference thing, which was boring as hell but i was glad for the invite (yey now i'm officially in!) followed by the grand english teachers meal, which only 5 of them actually turned up to, twas a bit peinlich and i barely understood a word (herbst ferien has destroyed my german). THEN out of the blue they paid for me...sweet! free meal! Plus i got to hang around Fabrice, the only teacher who's sense of humour is just like mine (childish)
To top it all off, my housemate Dan just invited me to a Halloween party and to spend the weekend in Düsseldorf....epic! Meanwhile Tim is still an absolute enigma...i swear i havent seen that kid in like a week and i live with him xD

oh Deutschland you so crazy random.
Now im gonna go watch Garden State...i'm in that sort of mood

mostly cos this song is epic chillig (i love when the germans steal our words)

....bis bald muthafuckers xxx