Drawings, Discipline, Dirndl, Destinations and Dumbfoundment (but it's not all bad!).

I've now been here for a grand total of 57 days. 
That's 8 weeks, or just under 2 months, or 1/6 of my time here (depending on how you look at it) and I've very much settled into the general routine of day-to-day working life.

I now am not only in charge of teaching English to young German children, but also music classes twice a week, as well as undertaking homework-marking and private tuition in my spare time.

Drawings

So I received my first present from a child yesterday. It was apparently a drawing of me:

Hair that's long enough to reach the floor, an anorexic-looking long purple body, short stick-legs (again, purple) a big smile and a lovely pair of purple glasses. 
Yupp. Very accurate... :-)

Discipline

Some of the children in my classes have now sussed out that I can be a bit of a pushover, which has been a steep learning curve!! I hate it when they start to play up and not listen to me, because I don't want to seem like the big scary English teacher, but it got bad enough the other day that I even had to send two boys out after they starting throwing things around, so I've had to learn very fast to assert my authority!
However, I now have some very sneaky tricks up my sleeve (mainly bribery-based), and I've finally mastered the subtle art of keeping the childrens' attention without needing to raise my voice, so my classes seem to be under a little bit more control again. 
We'll see how that goes!

Dirndl

I also recently went shopping with my housemate and her friend, and we all tried on the traditional German/Austrian national dress (called Dirndl). Pretty hysterical experience, I must say, and it was surprisingly comfortable:

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me...

Not sure quite how the children would react if I turned up to class like that though!

Destinations

So here I wanted to cleverly introduce the arrrival of a few lovely people to Berlin, but then couldn't really think of a word beginning with 'D' that would fit with my title. So I went with destinations. Sorry =P

Emily, Elaine and James (friends and fellow music students from Newcastle Uni) have just arrived to start their years abroad at Humboldt uni, here in Berlin. It was lovely to be able to see their familiar faces again, and to share in their experiences of moving here and settling in, even though I am working quite a lot of the time so unfortunately don't get to see them as much as I would like. 

Dumbfoundment

So I had a bit of a shock the other day, when I found out that the leader of the church I'd been going to here in Berlin has actually been arrested for having had sexual relations with a 13 year old boy. 

I'd met him a few times at the church services, really respected and looked up to him as a teacher and church leader and example of a model family man, and so it was a real surprise to find out that he had been arrested.

It has revealed many things to me:

• That no matter how well you think you know somebody, you never know what's going on inside their hearts/minds. A slightly daunting thought!
• Even those people who seem a perfect role model aren't actually perfect. They're just human.
• People (especially in Christian circles) are very very quick to judge. Me included.
• When the head of an organisation/group is suddenly not there any more, although it brings utter chaos, it brings people together under a united desire for sustaining the cause. It has made a lot of people re-evaluate what's important to keep the church running, and pull together to move forward.
• How much I need Jesus. Without him, I am nothing better than any murderers, idolaters, thiefs, rapists, adulterers, liars or cheats... yet with him, I have everything. I have no more regret, guilt or hopelessness, because I know that I have a hope and a love everlasting that will never change or leave me stranded. What an awesome gift!!

That's all for now. I'll try not to eat too many Currywurst before I post again.

Alles Liebe,

Louise x