I should eat something other than bread and cheese.

[feuervogel]

The boat trip was nice this morning. It was a bit cold on the upper level of the boat on the river when the wind came up (which it did, naturally, as we were on a river), but the sun was out and it was beautiful and clear. The only way it could have been more perfect was if it had been 5 degrees (at least) warmer. It's only like 55 degrees out. Brr. It's supposed to be cloudy the next few days, but it's supposed to warm up more. Which is cool.

Class was an interesting discussion of history and whether the German language is forever tainted by the association with the NSDAP, which tangented into discussions of whether Americans discuss slavery in school, as well as the Indians (whom we did our damnedest to exterminate.) (We don't, really.)

I bought a ticket for Iron Man 2, but since tsubasa asked, I'm not sure it's going to be in English. I guess I'll find out tomorrow! And if it isn't, I'll just go buy a ticket for it at the other massive cineplex which advertises its shows in English (Originalverfassung) and watch it again. I don't even know if a German dub of it exists yet...

The other gals in my class are cool and I like hanging out with them. Two of them are dragging me out to the Stammtisch tonight, which, even though it *says* it starts at 8, doesn't really start until 10. But they promised I just have to have one beer, and that's good enough. I can manage that ;) I'm still jet lagged as hell, though my lack of sleep may be starting to catch up with me. Last night I used my sleep mask, because the curtains aren't very dark, and it gets light really early (like 5:30 am.) It stays light fairly late - it's 7:45 as I type this, but my mental clock thinks it's more like 6:30. Sunset isn't till 8:40. Of course, that means on the other side, you get the damned short winter days.

A few of the gals also want to go to Dresden and Leipzig, so we may look into making a group trip. Maybe tomorrow during the break we can peruse the train schedules, for Dresden at least. Though they may want to do the cultural program things. Don't know.

I'm really damn tired, but I have to stay up another couple hours :P Maybe I'll go find something to eat, though my feet hurt from walking around all day in new shoes, and I kind of like sitting.

I got through all my rss feeds, mostly by saying "mark all as read" by category. I had 264 entries! I haven't even started looking at LJ! And my battery is trying to scare me, unfortunately. Tells me I have 30 minutes left.

Comments

[av3rnus.livejournal.com]

Class was an interesting discussion of history and whether the German language is forever tainted by the association with the NSDAP...

That might have been true, but I think the movie "Die Hard" kinda reset things a bit. Sorta.

...which tangented into discussions of whether Americans discuss slavery in school, as well as the Indians (whom we did our damnedest to exterminate.) (We don't, really.)

Odd, I remember both of those being covered quite a bit in my history classes from elementary through high school.

[feuervogel]

There are certain words, like Fuehrer, which people associate with Hitler all the time, even though it's used all the time in German - a driver's license is called a Fuehrerschein, the person who takes you on a guided tour is called the Fuehrer. It's probably because of American WW2 movies, which are also the reason people think German is such an ugly and harsh language, suitable only for giving orders. But most Americans haven't ever read a poem by Schiller or Goethe or Heine (and even more rarely in the original.)

What I learned about slavery in history class: it existed, it was bad, and we had a civil war to put an end to it, and Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. We didn't discuss the consequences of slavery that are still visible today (ie, the systematic racism), and we spent maybe 2 lectures on Jim Crow and the civil rights movement. (These are consequences of slavery and the mindset that allowed slavery to exist.)

What I learned about the American Indians in history class: Pilgrims, thanksgiving (which is a huge lie, actually), Manhattan for some beads, Trail of Tears, reservations. I wrote a paper in 10th grade history (US to 1860) on Andrew Jackson and his quest to kill the Indians and take their land, which is the only reason I learned as much as I did. We didn't go into the smallpox blankets, the rotten meat, General Custer, or anything like that. It's possible that because of where you grew up, where there are more visible Indian populations and the like, the schools included more on the subject.

I don't think we had much in the way of actual history classes per se (as opposed to social studies and general world history like "there were Sumerians and they had cuneiform, then there were Romans and Greeks, and Egypt" type of thing) until 8th grade.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

We covered both of those things, too. But I think my school district and akiko's were likely pretty different, despite being in the same state. I'm one of the few people I know who was satisfied with the education I got in high school; I was pretty lucky. I wouldn't be too surprised if it was different elsewhere.

[av3rnus.livejournal.com]

My history classes might have been a little different, but those summaries sound about right. I certainly don't remember those subjects being covered disproportionately *less* than other parts of American history; they may have been covered a bit more than most other parts. When you're trying to cover a couple centuries of American history in a semester, it's hard to give much more than an overview of any single time period.

[feuervogel]

Which is very different than what the Germans get as far as WW2: they spend a lot of time on self-flagellation, because they believe it's important to know this history and how it came to happen, because they don't want it to happen again. It seems vaguely unhealthy to think that way, but it's also unhealthy to completely avoid the subject like we do in the States. Ideally it should be somewhere in the middle.

The Holocaust, as you may imagine, is a really sensitive subject.