Inconsistencies

 I decided it may be time to add a few notes on cultural differences removed from the act of doing things... so, like George Carlin, I've been jotting down a list of things I notice in daily life. Except, unlike George, not all of these piss me off. Really, just the technology and door things piss me off. See yesterday.

In classes, I've noticed people using graphing paper to take notes on... and not just some, most do. I'm not quite sure why yet, either; no one appears to be writing inside each individual block, so the point seems moot to me. I don't know, maybe they just want to save paper... because that's a big thing here. Seriously, I have seen random people taking paper out of trash cans and placing it into recycling. Now there's something you rarely see in America...

Something else I've noticed in classes is the sheer rudeness of many students. When I say rude, I mean by American standards; in the classes I have attended thus far, it is quite common for random people throughout the class (depending on the class size) to carry on their own conversations throughout the class. If you get a class in a lecture hall, you'd best sit close to the teacher or by one of the auditorium speakers if you want to hear anything! The teachers, especially in the large classes, do not seem to notice. In my American classes, teachers will stop class as though college students are children (because they are acting so) until the noise subsides.

With this said, though, you'd best not be late to class... someone was about 4 minutes late yesterday to one of my 200 student lecture halls, and the professor stopped speaking and stared at the person all the way to his seat. "It's quite nice of you to join us," was all he said before shaking his head and continuing the lecture.

Almost all of the classes I am enrolled in require a presentation of some kind... even more so than American universities, in that the length requirement is, in the least, ten minutes. It's quite humorous to me; the reasoning for the presentations is that "English speaking countries, especially America, emphasize public speaking at a very young age, and we must try to catch up." I find this to be a highly exaggerated notion, but it could just be that my small-town upbringing allowed me to escape this fate. In any event, the emphasis is always NOT to go over time... and I'm talking about 20 minute presentations. I have participated in public speaking the better part of my life, but I am the exception to the rule of other American students in my experience. Yet, it baffles me that you could possibly go over the time limit on a 20 minute presentation at this college level. What on earth do the Germans have to talk about?

If I may digress for a moment, I'm already confusing myself as I learn the German language, especially with capitalization's and spelling... first, spell check on these German computers is obviously set to German, so everything I type in English shows up as incorrect. You can fix this, but it's a pain to have to switch Windows's native language every time you log onto a computer on campus. Second, the keyboards are laid out slightly differently, and while I always switch the input language to English, it is still difficult to type; the keys (especially the left shift key) are smaller and shaped slightly differently, making it a bit hard to type correctly. If you don't know the English keyboard by heart, you can't type correctly even with Windows set to English keyboards... the keyboard itself is labeled slightly different, especially with the symbols. The X and Y keys are also switched, making it quite a pain for someone whose last name is Strozzo... not Stroyyo.

Finally, in terms of the language itself, EVERY noun is capitalized, making it difficult to differentiate someone or some place's name and a regular word I don't know. It's also wreaking havoc on my knowledge of when to capitalize in English... such as saying "earth" or "Earth," depending on the context, from before.

Moving on. This point gets me still. It scared me at first, but after classes end, it is customary for all the students to beat on the desks/chairs/anything they can pound their hands on as an applause. It's quite startling, really; even in my smaller classes of 20 or so, everyone ferociously beats on the tables as an applause after the seminar ends. I asked one of the students in my Business English Presentations class about this, and she seemed surprised we did not do it as well. There's culture for you!

Leaving the realm of just the classroom, I'm finding Americans are far less known "personally" than I thought we would be; on the one hand, Germans have quite an impressive knowledge of American history, business, and language. On the other, current societal knowledge is lacking; as is to be expected, we are judged on the actions of our Government as though the entire population thinks likewise, as well as idiot media such as that viewed on MTV. This is quite frustrating, in that the general consensus of those I have spoken with (which, again, is not all-encompassing) is that we still, as a nation, operate under a Bush mentality. That in and of itself assumes we agreed with the former administration's policies, which further skews the Germans' understanding of our general disposition.

At the same time, though, the American military presence here in Trier due to the nearby Air Force (?) base [side note-- I had to search for the ? mark on this keyboard], does not help our image; generally, they come into bars in hordes, smashed, and proceed to act just like they often do in America: like asses. I generalize here, but it is because the stereotype is holding as truth in the Germans' minds. The running German joke to Americans such as myself is, "So... who's on the list to be carpet bombed this week?" Unfortunate as it may be, "our" foreign policy is still little more than a humorous [albeit not challenged] bit of afternoon conversation to Germans.

On the flip side, I sometimes feel as though I am a novelty item to the Germans, especially the younger ones. It had not occurred to me that Germans would have little interaction with actual Americans, but it appears to be the case. Keep in mind here that I live in a relatively small city, so this has a large part to do with it; Trier is not even on the American mini-map I bought of Germany. Still, almost every "younger" person (i.e., under age 25) is absolutely infatuated with the fact that I am American. Many times have I had conversations with random Germans eager to try out their English on an actual English speaker, and I repeatedly hear how cool it is that I am American... that I am part of the "American Dream," and that "[I] live in the land of opportunity." So, on top of their English being decades ahead of my German, the younger generation seems infatuated with our culture... yet have met so few actual Americans that their view of "us" is severely skewed.

Political activism is far more common with Europeans in my experience as well. Don't get me wrong---many Americans are quite politically active. But, in my experience, the common person in America cares far less about the political system than any of the other nationalities I have met thus far. In fact, in the hundreds of people I have spoken with in the last month, I cannot think of the first person who has ever mentioned NOT voting. Any time I say I do not vote, I get looks of confusion, and sometimes even anger! I think the general mindset of Europeans is that they have much more control over their systems of governing than I am accustomed to feeling in America. But that may be just me.

In other news, I met another random person after class last night who happens to be the student in charge of an international concert event going on in the next two weeks consisting of performances (singing, dancing, etc) from various international students. It should be fun! I may help out with the theater logistics, being that I have some experience with them. Even so, the technology in the auditorium the event takes place in is... well, archaic, so I'll have to see what happens.

I'm also buying tickets to go to a 3-day music festival north of Trier in Stutsgard (?), headlined by Foo Fighters! It sounds like a hippie fest; apparently you go, drink a lot, camp out [literally], and listen to random bands for 3 days straight. Sounds like a win to me. Finally, I'm planning to visit a friend in England in May, so I will hopefully buy airline tickets to there within the next day or so!

Well, now that I've ranted on the inner workings of the cultural knowledge I've gained primarily in social settings, I should go do the whole homework thing. I have a 15 minute presentation over Plymouth Rock in my American Politics course... how ironic. The bummer is that, being that I still have no laptop, I'm having to use the German computers to prepare a PowerPoint presentation. This means PowerPoint has all its commands written in German, and it's been awhile since I've had to use the program anyway. We'll see how this goes.