Pete's Log: Genau. doch!

Entry #1413, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 28 years old.)

Jetzt einige Dinge die ich hier abspeichern wollte...

Sara's Thanksgiving event was a smashing success. A total of eleven people were in attendance. A lot of food was consumed. Sara herself handled the staple items (Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, carrots, apple pie). I provided moral support as well as making mashed potatoes. The others brought more food (pumpkin pie, dessert items, corn bread, and so on) and overall it was a delicious Thanksgiving feast. Not a bad accomplishment in Deutschland.

I had also hooked up my iPod to speakers in the kitchen during the cooking. That this was possible is a testament to Apple. A couple weeks ago, I thought my iPod was a lost cause. It hit the ground after a fall of six or more feet. When it did, the music stopped, the screen froze, and the buttons did nothing. But I let the battery die, and then plugged it back in to the charger. To my surprise, it booted up normally. There were a few black lines across the screen, but it still played! And within a few hours, those lines even disappeared. The only remaining evidence of its fall is a dent on one of the corners. Yay iPod! I'm so happy it survived. Thanks, Apple!

I also successfully changed my iTunes account to use the German store. So I've acquired some fun German songs, including a few Wiesn hits.

German's been fun. I still have a ways to go, but it's improved a lot since I arrived here. Which, by the way, is now more than three months ago. I should really read a book on German grammar, because I've come to realize that I'm relying too much on intuition. Luckily my intuition is pretty decent. But I've noticed my shortcomings in my attempts to teach Sara German. I'll say something and she'll ask why something is conjugated or inflected a particular way, and I won't be able to explain it to her. But when I look it up, I mostly turn out to have been right.

Particularly funny was this example: we were walking around and saw a little dog (a cute one, at that). Sara asked how you would saw "little dog" in German. And I realized that I wanted to say "ein kleiner Hund," but "der kleine Hund." And it made absolutely no sense to me why the inflection of klein was changing. I just knew it sounded right. I was convinced that I had something wrong, so I looked it up. And sure enough, the inflection of German adjectives changes depending on the article. I intuitively got it right, but had no idea why. That doesn't make me a very good German teacher.

I was in Mannheim Tuesday and Wednesday for CA's infoexchange. It was strange to be at a CA event as an ex-employee. I didn't see any of Mannheim other than the exhibition hall and the hotel. But I got to practice my German. Na, ist doch prima.