Today marks the second month I've been in Germany and holy shit has the time rushed right before my eyes.
I started school 4 weeks ago. At first it was tragically pants-shitting difficult. I felt like the school pet, following everyone around with widened eyes and not really saying anything. It was like I was trapped behind the cemented language barrier, trying desperately to let everyone know how amazing I can be. "I promise I can be smart! Just not auf Deutsch!" I would scream in my head as I looked dumbly at the teacher while a classmate would explain that I'm a tragic American who has tragically found herself across the ocean and then some.
The Tragedy of the American Exchange Student Who is Actually Pretty Cool But Just Can't Speak German lasted about 5 days. Of course meeting everyone and testing the waters was pretty awkward, but that's normal. It would have been the same if I was a new student in a school in Montana or England; teenagers need a little while to get to know each other. Naturally it was easier for the others who have mostly known each other since they were towing around Schultüten, but by the second week I felt pretty comfortable around everyone. In Gymnasium, you pretty much stick to a certain class for most of the school day. The 10th grade is split up into 4 classes: 10a, 10b, 10c, and 10d. I'm in 10b, and the kids in my class are pretty great. We all talk to each other and there really aren't any strictly exclusive cliques. They group up like any other teenagers would, but it's completely normal to hang out with different people during breaks. A great icebreaker was when we were all sitting around, waiting for our Chemistry teacher, and a guy busted out his phone and read out funny porn names. It wasn't exactly the most elegant activity, but who wouldn't become friends after laughing together at Analdin und die wunde Schlampe?
I think my greatest accomplishment so far is how good my German has gotten in the past couple of months. I'm still no Goethe but I can hold actual conversations with only a few American oopsies here and there. And hell, I've still got 8 months to contemplate why it's das Mädchen.
8 months can be a long or short time, it depends on you look at it and whether or not there's a glass of beer in front of you. Everything is difficult at first but if you toughen up and plow through then things can be pretty amazing.
