my german homework

I'm supposed to be taking a reading German class, which attended once last week. I audited a German reading class at Stanford over the summer, where we used German For Reading Knowledge by Jannach and Korb, which as I understand has become a standard text for teaching German reading. In that book, you translate somewhat academic texts as you go along, like ones that teach you about Bach or German Universities or German history or the Romantic period.

My professor here teaches exclusively from the same book from which he has taught for about the past fifty years. It's not published anymore, and somehow this is not surprising, as I realized when I translated the first text.

Text B
John and Nancy
John sits next to Nancy. [here there is a footnote, which says "The names John and Nancy are used because the action takes place in America"]. Professor Jones says naturally not John and Nancy, he says Herr Miller and Fraulein Wells. But we say simply John and Nancy and report: John sits next to Nancy. They have "Abnormal Psychology." John understands not. No wonder, he is normal. He observes Nancy and thinks: "The girl understands all. Is she intelligent, or is she not normal?" Also Nancy understands nothing, but she shows it not. No wonder, she is a girl.

Then go Nancy and John to Professor Schmidt. They have German now and again sits John next to Nancy. "I hope, Germans is not so hard as Psychology," says John. "Hard?" asks Nancy. "How think you that? I find, Psychology is not hard." John says no more.

"Fraulein Wells," asks Professor Schmidt, "how says you 'i'?"
"I, i, i," says Nancy.
"Now make your mouth round and say again "i, I."
"U, u, u," says Nancy now. John laughs, but then says he also "i" and "u." "Hm," thinks he, "I say 'i' and it sounds like 'u'. I am not normal."

All say "i" and "u." John hears it not, he observes again Nancy. "The girl is pretty," thinks he. "I hope, i am as old as she."
"How old are you?" writes he on a piece of paper.
"I am 18," writes Nancy.
"That is good," writes John, "I am also 18."

Aside from the obvious sexual dynamics, I think the weirdest thing about this whole passage is the strange preoccupation with what is "normal." Who goes to class and sits around and wonders if they are "normal"? If i didn't understand a class, mostly I would wonder if I was stupid, not if I were normal. I also think it's really funny that the authors require a footnote to explain to us that it's okay that the characters are called John and Nancy, as if we're going to call them up and object to the realism of the text because the names aren't German.

Anyway, just some oddness for the day. . .

weather

I swear I am living in a parallel universe.

I haven't liked summer mornings since I was twelve, when I was on a swim team and had to get up and get into a cold pool every morning it was sunny. Some people like a cold pool in the morning, but not me. I'm a terrible swimmer. I don't know why I didn't quit--I told my mom this years later, how much I hated being on swim team, and she asked me, "why did you go, then?" and I can't say. What I would do is watch the weather channel every evening, praying for some rain in the next week or so, because that would mean swim practice would be cancelled. Also, maybe I would have liked swim team more if my best friend had done it with me as planned, but instead she went to England for a month with her parents.

What this all means now is that 1) I want to move to England (and have been envious of people from or visiting England since then) and 2) I don't like summer mornings.

I just got this adorable new MacBook over break, and those of you who know Macs know it has this feature, the Dashboard, where you can set up odd useful things to be handy, like a calculator or a notepad, flight tracker, calendar, etc. Or weather reports.

It's currently 82 degrees in Irvine.

59 degrees in Menlo Park. Ok, makes sense. . . 41 and raining in Edmonds.

82 degrees???? It's fucking JANUARY. I like being warm. . . but seriously? This is kind of not okay. As I said. I'm living in a parallel universe.

Oh, my goodness.