It has now been almost half a year
since I got to CSB/SJU. Wow. Time really flies. To make you understand more what
my life here is like, I would like to describe five things that I enjoy(ed).
Every
semester, there is something called the 24 hour play festival at CSB/SJU. A
group of incredibly talented students get together and write, direct, rehearse
and perform a total of 8 plays play in 24 hours. In January, I got to write an
8 minute play and then act in it as well. Even though I was on about an hour of
sleep and there was more blood in my caffeine than caffeine in my blood, I
enjoyed every second of it and it was a total blast. Teaching theater in
Austria, I could gather some valuable experiences as well.
One
of my German club related highlights last semester was Oktoberfest. We served
authentic pretzels, danced the polka and had a gummy-bear guessing game. We put
a lot of work and effort into it and I think it paid off well. For advertising
it we had a great flash mob with traditional Austrian music at the Gorecki
dining center and we also handed out hot cider at the bus stop. All in all, I
enjoyed working together with an ambitious team of German club officers.
Another highlight was definitely
winter break. I left freezing Minnesota mid-December and traveled for about a
month. After a fantastic Fulbright Conference in DC where I got to meet all of
the other Fulbright teaching assistants, I went to Hawaii, San Francisco, drove
up to Vancouver, then met up with some fellow Fulbrights again in New Orleans
and ended winter break with a road trip to Boston. I met amazing people, saw
different landscapes, cities, cultures, weather, you name it.
Related to this is the establishment of an unofficial
cooking club. Every Sunday, some friends from German club and I get together
and cook something. The menu is usually very international -- we’ve had Japanese
Maki or Gumbo from New Orleans for example. It is a lot of fun recreating
various recipes and getting a taste of different countries and cultures. While
cooking, we also share stories about our trips all over the world.
Finally, I would like to talk about
how teaching German and studying at CSB/SJU helps me professionalize my teaching
skills. I am a teaching assistant for two German courses and I enjoy working
with the students as well as with the German professors. This semester, I am
taking two classes on ESL and last semester, I took a class on how to teach
theater to children and a “Public Speaking for Teachers” seminar. It feels like
those are the classes that I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time.
What I appreciate most about them is that they are hands-on. Furthermore, the
professors are very knowledgeable and have great insights into pedagogical theory.
The only thing that I will never adapt
to is the temperature here in Minnesota. I have to say that I was relieved that
when there had been a low of 30
degrees below zero, I had been sitting in a cozy hotel room in New Orleans and
hoping for it to pass before I got back.
All in
all, I am having a good Fulbright experience here at CSB/SJU, teaching and
learning, cooking and eating, performing and watching and freezing and getting
warmed up again. I would like to end with a quote from Mark Twain, summing up
what I've learned so far, encouraging everybody to set out on a journey and
outlining the benefits:
Travel
is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.