Deutsch

I am currently taking three German classes. This is part of my desperate attempt to complete two majors in  3.5 years. So far it seems to be working.

I wanted to share with you a few thoughts on the delightful German language.

First of all, it really does not sound all that terrible. That stereotype comes from World War II and Hitler. Hitler was a truly interesting speaker. His spittle kept the front ten rows of listeners quite active as they attempted to dodge the flying liquid.

Real German speakers who aren't evil dictators actually sound rather lovely in my opinion.

I may be biased. After all, my Grandmother is German and I grew up around the language.

I have other reasons why German is the best language.

Everyone should take German. Why? Because it's damn easy. That's why.

1. EVERYTHING is phonetic. You can sound EVERY SINGLE WORD OUT. This is good for those of us who became voracious readers at a young age. Some people (such as me) learned how to read phonetically and then started reading more advanced books and then sounded like an idiot when they said such things as "Protest-ant" or "guest-ture" or "wreck-loose." Language is a difficult thing. I vote we abolish silent letters. Or we could all just speak German and pronounce everything the way it should be.

2. German is incredibly easy to learn how to speak if you already know English. Basically, English and German are both Germanic languages. Which means they're more similar to each other in terms of sentence pattern, words, idioms, etc, than English and French (SERIOUSLY WHO TAKES THIS LANGUAGE?!) or English and Spanish (ok, I can see why this one is helpful.) Want examples? Whenever I don't know how to say something in German, I just say it in English and put a German accent on it. 9 out of 10 times, I am correct. Control? Kontrolieren. Dance? Tanzt. Pepper? Pfeffer. Salt? Saltz. Dog? Hund. Cat? Katze. Brother? Bruder. Bank? Bank. Come? Kommen. Even if the word isn't exact, you can usually figure it out. Flowers? Blumen. Post office? Post. Fur? Pelz.

3. Another lovely thing is that you really don't need to learn many words to speak German. After you know a few handfuls, you just stuff them altogether to make new words. Example? Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl. Literally the words together+belonging+feeling= sense/feeling of community. Lovely. This is especially nice because I am lazy and don't like to look up words. You can basically figure out the gist of what any word means by looking at the different parts.

4. Grimms' Fairy Tales. Yes. The bloodier/sexualized versions of Disney stories. Only these came first. Did you know Snow White's step-mother was tortured to death at her wedding? Yeah, she was forced to wear white hot iron shoes while she danced UNTIL SHE DIED. Rapunzel? Not such a sweet wholesome girl. Originally, the sorceress found out about the prince because he knocked Rapunzel up and her clothes stopped fitting.

5. German is super easy to learn because there are real rules. Not English rules where they're only used every ten times, these are consistant. Exceptions are rare, not the rule. Why? Because they were made up by Germans and Germans follow the rules. Always. That's one of the rules. For instance, the verb comes second. ALWAYS. It is the second part of the sentence.

6. Everyone who speaks German is a boss. Also guys who take German are generally hot. Or Jewish. Or both. This has been my experience in German classes at least. The girls who learn German? Hit or miss. Either they're smoking or they look like a witch on crack. Which could be appealing, if you're into that kind of thing.

7. The Germans are all about sex. All the time. Everywhere. Every movie you watch in German classes will be about sex. Every story you read will have sexual undertones. Or overtones. It is a) hysterically funny and b) super entertaining and c) makes fabulous conversations. Or should I say, Konversationen?



Here is a video of my aunt torturing my grandmother. She is rather old and helpless. She can say squirrel in both German and English, though. Apparently a lot of other Germans can't. Wanna know why? BECAUSE ENGLISH IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN/SPEAK/UNDERSTAND. Especially those fucking abrevs.

Hoarding

If you've ever seen the show Hoarders you know that it's the most addictive thing since chocolate. You also know that watching it makes you feel significantly more secure about the massive amount of crap you cram into your home.

Now, I have no money and I live in a space that is literally 10 feet by 12 feet; this, however, won't stop me from amassing a re-donk-ulous amount of shit.

For instance, I have three pairs of scissors within arms reach and 6 chapsticks stored conveniently throughout my room.

In my defense, one pair of scissors is for cooking, another for art, and the last for everything else. The chapsticks are simply because I am really fucking lazy and refuse to change locations in order to moisturize my lips.

Another thing, I have at least twenty pairs of non-work-out pants. If not more. I wear probably 5 of them on a regular basis. This clearly makes no sense; I should donate them all right?

WRONG. I have been collecting these pants since I was a freshman in high school. The fact that most of these pants stopped fitting when I got boobs and hips, is simply besides the point. I NEED them. Several are multi-colored. This alone is a wonderful reason to keep them. Others will be perfect for when I get a boob job and become an anorexic model in Germany.

Water bottles are another thing I hold on to. This is not my fault. People tend to give water bottles out for free and how can I say "No" to free? I can't. That's how. There are four water bottles sitting on my desk next to me as I write this. One is full of water. One is very large and used for exercise; I don't know why it is here and not in my exercise bag. The dog probably put it there. I don't have a dog though. Getting one is on my to-do list. The other two function a lot like the chapsticks. I won't drink liquids if I have to move to get them. Laziness is a disease and is burning rampant through my body faster than my white blood cells can attack the virus.

These are white blood cells attacking a virus. Apparently this needs clarification.

Let's move on.

I have over thirty exercise only shirts. These were also mainly free. Or from concerts/fencing tournaments. The reason I require this many is due to the fact that laundry machines are evil and I hate them. They are all out to get me, I swear. Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Or however that phrase goes. Seriously, watch Homeland. That will clarify the validity of my paranoia.

Basically, anytime I do laundry I lose at least four pairs of socks, shrink one article of clothing, ruin a pair of underwear's elastic, and nothing gets properly dried. I blame the laundry machines. It is clearly entirely their fault and not my inability to sort laundry/wash things on anything, but cold (for getting out blood, duh!)/remove things from the wash that don't go into the dryer.

Also I bleed a lot and ruin clothing often. It comes from being incredibly untalented at walking. For example, I've fallen down twice today and it's not even 11am. The first fall I would like to blame on Julia. She tripped me when we played indoor soccer this morning during practice. She definitely put her foot there for me to trip over on purpose.

The second time I fell this morning was while walking up the stairs. Sometimes I get distracted by chewing gum or thinking while walking up the stairs and forget to think about where I am walking and trip. I like to think this is lucky. I fall up the stairs significantly more than down. This is a positive, because falling down the stairs is inherently more painful/destructive. For instance, last time I fell down the stairs, I fractured my arm.

This clumsiness leads me to my medicine cabinet which contains a brace or bandage for nearly every type of injury along with an incredible array of medicines, current and expired. Do I need all of this? The answer undoubtably is yes.

One thing I really don't need, however, is old magazines. Yet, I can't throw them away. I just can't. I fucking paid big bucks for those issues and I plan on keeping them for a very very long time! However, I have never looked at an issue, after reading it once, again. They just sit there in their little magazine bins on the top shelf of my desk. My argument for keeping them: what if someone is bored when they come over and want to read a magazine. However, not even I can support this argument as obviously no one is ever bored when they come to visit me. Duh.

Other things I hoard: books ( I REREAD THEM OK?!), make-up (why yes, I do still use that half full lip gloss I bought in 4th grade), nail polish (there are a ton of shades of red!!), sweatshirts (different colors and weight depending on what I'm wearing and the time of year... obviously).... and too many other things to count.

I can't help myself, ok? I have a disorder.