The week in Hannover

Here's what is going on for me this week:

I'm working in the school library because the librarian is gone on the 7th grade Outward Bound trip. It works out well for both of us - he gets to canoe with 12 year olds, I get to shelve books and learn to read to kids sideways and upside down while I hold the book out so they can see the pictures. There are books here in about 5 languages, and a lot of families come to the school library for all the same reasons you might come to a public library, if all the books were in your language.  All the librarians in my family should be proud.

On top of working 8 hours every day, I am still going to German class for 2 hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I know I can do it, sort of like I know I can do long division. It's been a while, though, and the thought of it was making me nervous. But now I am in the groove again, helped by the fact that I'm not working that hard while in the library.

Yesterday in German class, we had three new students. One is from Turkey and his name is Jwan (ju-wahn), another is from the Dominican Republic and his name is Juan (hwan). We also have a Vietnamese woman named Hoa (hwa). I may have been the only student in class who thought this was funny. I immediately liked Juan because he is kind of loud, and friendly, and laughs a lot. There's something familiar about Latin Americans, or people from the Western Hemisphere in general, that I warm up to right away.

On Monday and Thursday afternoons I coach international school cross country team. I use the words 'coach' and 'team' lightly. Sports at the international school are offered once or twice a week for the kids who want to come. The big draw is that the tournaments, or in our case our one and only meet of the season, are hosted by other international schools around Germany. School sports are a North American/British thing that is sort of half-done here in Hannover; kids who are real athletes join a club instead. Cross country is not as cool as soccer, and way more exhausting than badminton, so our numbers are small. There's also no expectation that the kids have to come to every practice, or else. But, as Brian reminds me, I get paid a few euros to run after school with some nice kids. It could be a lot worse.

So that's my week, I guess. I just found out that tomorrow and Friday I might be in 4th grade instead of the library... I hope I can still practice reading sideways while I'm there. I just started to get good at it.