Wer wartet mit Besonnenheit, der wird belohnt zur rechten Zeit

Last night I had a dream about reading the Bible. Is that a bit weird? I don't think it is.

I'm not a particularly confident speaker of German. This is a rather inconvenient trait for a linguist to have, and it's one that I've concluded is partially down to the English school system. Those of you who have been in seminars with me will note that I am hardly the most talkative or active person within a learning environment anyway, but I know I've gotten more active since I started at Sheffield, and I've been forced to speak more. One thing Mariana always says is 'say something. It doesn't matter if it's wrong, just say something'. Or words to that effect. It's only since I've been here and been forced to speak German on a daily basis that I've become any form of confident.

The kids I work with are always being encouraged to speak. They don't necessarily know, but they'll give it a go anyway. All of the kids put their hands (plural, usually accompanied by an increasingly annoying 'ooh!') up at some point in the lesson, and I try to make sure all of the kids say something in the lesson. There's a very heavy emphasis on speaking. The kids learn to recognise spoken words and images, then they learn how to write them. We test their ability to answer questions and recite songs. Most of it seems fairly useless, but it's getting them speaking the language. And they'll all know what to do if I ever tell them to stamp their feet. That was an exhausting lesson. Perhaps those of you at Gymnasien, Real- and Hochschule around the country could tell me what the situation is like higher up the school system with the students' ability to read/write in English. Having met Gymnasium students before, I know their spoken English is excellent. When I started learning German, we weren't encouraged to speak anywhere near as much as these kids. I'm much more confident reading and writing in German than I am conversing in it. I'm convinced if we had been encouraged to speak as much as these kids, I'd be much more confident speaking the language. Of course, a lot of the other language students I know are naturally confident speakers, something I'm not. That's because they don't care if they get it wrong, they'll go for it anyway. That's down to individual personality. The more naturally withdrawn kids volunteer answers less frequently, but they still do it.

In other news, I still haven't got a WG. A guy's calling me back on Fridya, but I'm not confident. I've got other places getting in touch with me/to get in touch with. The longer this goes on, the more I'm thinking I'm just not meant to be here. It's all really rather depressing. Mother Nature has clearly seen how I'm feeling about stuff, so has decided to make me feel better by making the weather as British as possible. So basically it's cloudy, it's chilly and it keeps raining. Yay.

Due to my lack of accommodation, I'm still in a hostel. The hostel doesn't have WLAN, WiFi to you and I, but it does have a T-Mobile hotspot. That means I'm essentially sat in the corridor. Unfortunately, the hostel is currently playing host to a load of young Germans. A load of screaming Germans who insist on running up and down the corridor, knocking on doors. Currently, one of them is treating us to his repertoire of Nirvana songs. Unfortunately, his repertoire consists solely of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and 'Lithium'. His playing isn't bad. His singing is awful. I wish they would all just sei the f**k still!

Bis bald!

P.S. Please feed my fish.