Quick recap of my birthday and Austria

Last Friday I had an amazing opportunity to celebrate my birthday in the Austrian Alps. After sitting through a quantum chemistry lecture in German on Friday morning, I decided to skip out on two sessions of talks to explore the hiking trails around the city. After 1.5 hours of hiking uphill, I reached a trailhead. As much as I yearned to explore more, I knew that I needed to return to the conference, so I snapped a few pictures and then walked back down to the conference site.

I sat through a few more hours of conference that day, then left for the Conference excursion to Dachstein Sky Walk, a restaurant and sky walk located 2700m (nearly 9000 feet) above sea level. When we arrived, the entire area was indunated with snow, so my hopes of seeing an alphine sunset were quickly diminished. However, I took the time to enjoy the snow and test out the winterproofness of my new jacket by falling in the snow a few times. I took the time to make a fun video showing my Wurzburg companions and I exploring new and exciting ways to fall in the snow.



I snapped a lot of pictures over the weekend and posted the best ones to my picassa site.

Austria - STC 2008

I hope you enjoy the photos and video!

be afraid or be wrong

Or...don't be afraid to be wrong. I've noticed that I have two choices while studying here in Germany, I can speak in German and probably say something wrong, or I can be afraid of making a mistake. My mood fluctuates between the two. Sometimes I spend 10 minutes trying to come up with the grammatically correct sentence only to see the person walk away before I can use it. Other times I just blurt out a sentence that makes the German speakers go "huh?". When I think about what I just tried to say, even I go "huh?" I am afraid because I don't want to be labeled an idiot, but if I don't speak, I could possibly be labeled as rude.

This week is the first week that I've been completely surrounded by Germans. The last 6 weeks I've had the ability to fall back into American English with other Fulbrighters. At this conference, the official language is English (ironic considering that the conference is a meeting of German speaking countries) but most people slip back to German during breaks and lunches. Sometimes I understand the German but most of the time I understand about 25% of what they say (similar to my understanding of all the current theoretical talks). If you've ever been to a conference with me, you know that I love to use breaks to network. I smile and make sure that I talk to all the interesting speakers that I meet (which leads to very exciting opportunities). At this conference, I'm often too intimidated by the German (and quantum chemistry) language of the speakers to say anything more than hello.

German, like scientific research, requires that you make a lot of mistakes before things turn out right.

After two days of this behavior I'm sick and tired of it. Why am I so afraid to look like a fool? For my research, its in my best interest to ask as many questions as possible, even if they are extremely simple. Its so much better to look like a fool now when I'm just learning the subject than look like a fool when I try to give my defense. For German speaking, I'm the only person who thinks that I should be fluent in German quantum chemical terms.The language of science is English, so I've had to remind myself that its okay to speak English with other scientists. I also can not expect myself to speak perfect German (or Quantum) after just short study. So I have to overcome my natural shyness (yes, believe it or not, I am naturally shy) and start making mistakes. So today, I stopped forcing myself to talk only in German and embraced my natural desire to network. So far, nothing amazing has happened other than I don't feel as stressed out, but I'll keep you updated if a Nobel Laureate invites me for tea. :-)

Sprachkurs ist fertig!

I completed my language and culture course requirements today!

3 page long essay on German extremism - done
language test - done
language proficiency - still working on it
poster for Austria conference - done
packing for conference - done
sleeping - um...can I sleep in the car?

It feels weird to say that I've finished the first hurdle of my time in Germany. I now only have 90% of my time in Germany remaining. Wow, time flies fast. I know that I've learned a lot of German, but I still lack fluency. I can carry on simple conversations, but once the conversation moves to more complicated terms (read, anything that is not my family, weather, or where I'm from), then I become quickly confused. If the conversation contains a preposition or past participle, then my mind starts to explode.

But in reality, I've learned that German is not all that different than English. Sure, German uses specific words to indicate direct and indirect objects while English relies on word order, but the fact remains that the Germans still think in terms of direct and indirect objects. The idea behind the language is still the same. I just need to learn which preposition goes with what idea. i.e. uber dem Tisch versus auf dem Tisch...one indicates that the item is flying over the table and the other indicates the item is on the table. (Imagine the expression on a German's face when you say that the flowers flew over the the table.)

Learning German has also forced me to think about how I use my own language. I become frustrated with Germans because their verbs don't conjugate in a logical manner. But then I remember the verb....being.

I am
he, she, it is
he was
I was
they were
they are.....

There is not a trend, I just became accustomed to English phrasing so I never thought about strange conjugation. I have no reason to yell at Germans for creating a difficult language. English can be just as illogical, if not more so than German! I hope that as I hear German spoken around me, that I will eventually pick up on the correct forms of verbs, the correct prepositions, and the correct sentence structure (verb at the end!).

Perhaps in a few months time, English will seem just as odd and German will feel more natural.

P.S. - I visited McDonalds today. Sometimes I'm glad that a little piece of the US can be found in nearly every country you visit.

still alive...just busy

I'm still around, just incredibly busy with language class, recovering from illness, packing for Austria, and spending time with other Fulbrights. I'll try to catch up sometime next week. In the meantime, know that I am safe. I leave for Austria on Tuesday morning and will return the following Sunday.

The conference takes place in Ramsau am Dachstein, a small Austrian alp village.
http://www.ptc.tugraz.at/stc2008/indexE.html

In addition to meeting lots of colleagues who work on similar project, I will enjoy some beautiful Alps. :-) On Friday, September 26th (my favorite day of the year), I will join other participants on an outdoor excursion to the top of a mountain where I will climb through an ice cave and watch the sun set over the Alps. :-)

I promise to post pictures and blog as soon as possible.

New Beverages = New experiences

One of my favorite things to do in a new place is to visit the local grocery store. Nothing will help you understand the culture more than to figure out what they like to eat. Germans like food, and they like fresh food. Most Germans buy food to last 1-2 days, not 1-2 weeks like Americans do, so grocery stores are happening places. Today I decided to pick up weekend groceries at Tegut, a local German grocery and I came across Mojito flavored Pepsi Light. That's right, Diet Pepsi with lime and peppermint flavoring. As a 1.25 Liter bottle (no idea why they picked 1.25L) cost only 59 cents, I decided I had to try it.

First impression....its not that bad. It doesn't have any sugar but the lime flavoring tends to mask the aspartame aftertaste. Its not my favorite soda of all time (that title still falls to Diet Berries and Cream Dr. Pepper) I can see how this would taste good on a warm summer day. That's my cultural food note for this week. If you come and visit me, I'll try to save some of this interesting beverage for you.

I hear a picture

I heard a picture in German today. No, I'm not mixing up English words because I've studied German so long, I really heard a picture in German today. My Sprachkurz teacher was telling a story about a dog and a child in German. Instead of hearing the German word then translating back to English, I created a picture just from the German words. To me, it signals that I'm starting to think in German. I still struggle to understand German spoken much faster than a snail's pace and I often have to ask the speaker to repeat a phrase but I can often respond to the words spoken (albeit with poor grammar and sometimes the wrong verb).

I also reached another significant milestone today, I felt German. Numerous multilingual speakers have told me that their personality changes when they speak a different language. Since I've never spoken another language fluently, I ussually smiled and nodded when others told me of the change, thinking that they were a little crazy. Today, I felt the beginnings of the change. Well, I actually felt the change when I switched back to English after speaking and listening to German for nearly 2 hours. While speaking German, my posture and mannerisms became more deliberate and I spoke more precisely. When I switched back to English, I noticed how my posture changed and I began to speak more loudly (even though all my companions spoke fluent English). The experience was quite uncanny. I hope it happens again soon. :-)