Settling In

After a few moderately stressful periods of what has felt like constant upheaval, I feel like I'm (very) slowly starting to settle in to a cozy life in Hannover. This Monday was my first real day of school, which turned out to be pretty uneventful since I mostly just introduced myself and then observed in the back and served as a "living" dictionary. On Mondays I have one class with my host teacher (13. grade) and then one class with a different teacher (12. grade) who happens to be a first-year teacher (and sometimes looks as confused as me). Everyone at the school has been exceptionally nice so far, but I'm looking forward to teaching my own lessons and taking a more active role.


Since my classes were cancelled today (all the upperclass students went to the Uni. Hannover) all I had was a staff meeting (Gesamtkonferenz) which thankfully only lasted for two hours instead of the three for which it was scheduled. So excluding classes on Monday and this Gesamtkonferenz, all I've done in Hannover this week is explore the city some (pictures should be appearing shortly) and go to open house viewings/meetings at various shared flats (basically, apartments that rent by the room). Speaking of wandering around the city--my host teacher graciously gave me a bike to use to get around Hannover, which is very bike friendly by the way, but needless to say it's been quite a while since I've ridden a bike extensively. Monday, I made the mistake of riding bike entirely further than I originally planned on (basically around this giant lake in the southern part of Hannover) and then got turned around and went to far north before finding my way home (all of which, I'm proud to say, I did without getting my map out from my bookbag). My butt has been sore for two days, but at least the blister on the ball of my foot is slowly going away.


One repeating them I've noticed over the past two weeks (have I really been here for two weeks?) is how encouraging everyone has been with my German. They never cut me off when I'm thinking of how to answer, rush me when I'm having problems or laugh at my many mistakes (well, only once but it was pretty funny in hindsight). Whenever I express uncertainty or apologize for my language skills (or lack thereof) they always refute me and compliment me on my German. I think I just needed that adjustment period where I absorbed all of the language I could before I began to get back into the "German" flow of things. Hopefully now I can shake off this whole "Woe is me" language barrier excuse and bust out with my blossoming German skills!