katheliz

Vierling just called from Traunstein to say that he'll be here in January for my 80th birthday.  There've been very few occasions - no more than five - when all five of my children have been in the same room, so I'm very happy.  sarabyrd and enview will be here, too. Having an intercontinental family with a 20-year range in ages has its drawbacks.

Apparently the police had been tipped off that there was pot in the apartment, a no-brainer since the whole house was full of either students or folk-singers.  When the cops knocked on the door, the visitor happened to answer it.  One cop asked, 'Got any marijuana here?', and the helpful visitor said cheerfully, 'All you want!' and opened the door wide.   The arrestee and his wife went to Utah, where he finished college; he returned to Berkeley for his PhD and is a professor emeritus of botany.  Funny how these things work out.

Many years ago my young neighbor was arrested for drug possession because the police, who were in his apartment, caught him trying to hide some marijuana.  But he got a good lawyer, who argued that while the police had been invited into the apartment, the person who invited them in was not an actual resident, but a visitor.  Therefore the arrest was not legal and my neighbor went free.  Well, not exactly free.  He owed (and paid) the lawyer $2000. This was in California, in 1963.  

'Clay Jones on the verdict in the (latest) St. Louis shooting of a black motorist, in which a judge ruled that the police officer's declaration prior to pulling him over that he was going to kill the motorist, and the fact that the handgun found in the car had the officer's DNA but none of the victim's, and the fact that the officer's partner never found it necessary to unholster his own gun, did not mean that the officer had done anything wrong.'  Quoted from http://comicstripoftheday.com/, a blog by Mike Peterson.

That may be one reason why the then-head of the Handelsschule in Rosenheim hired only American-born native English speakers for his English department.  I don't know whether that's still the case. I don't know whether he ever realized that my ex-, who taught there for forty years, was teaching the kids to mispronounce wash, Illinois, and influence as warsh, Illinoise, and inFLUence.

And that's why if you want your children to actually learn a language, you immerse them.  My kids learned German in school and among their friends they learned to speak Bayrisch.  Even had an affordable international school been available, with a gentler approach than German schools, my children would never have gained the competence in German that they have still if they hadn't been in the local schools. I still have to laugh when I remember that at least one Schulrektor (Principal) told us we should speak German at home with the children.  If we had, they'd have spoken Gastarbeiter German and they'd have believed the English teacher who told sarabyrd that piano is pronounced piarrno and that valley is pronounced walley.

The Fire Department came to my house when the basement started to flood during a heavy rainstorm.  They pumped out the water and reset the sump pump.

@engelchen, you're very up-to-date on Germany and you have doubleplusgood advice for ex-pats, but I'm going to disagree with your advice this time. While my older children were in school in the 70s, that doesn't mean things were easier.  In fact, in then provincial Rosenheim, the only foreign children of any significance were ethnic Turks.  They weren't attempting even Realschule yet, much less Gymnasium; my children were exotics because they were foreign but they looked German.  That probably made it easier for the teachers.   Erstling stayed only four years in Germany, going back to the US when he was eighteen.  @alphadog made her Mittlere Reife at a Realschule for commercial subjects.  @sarabyrdmade her Abitur at age 20 and is equally at home in English and German. Again, I say it all depends.  It takes a lot of work on the parents' part and even more work on the part of the children, but success is possible.  However, if @Luiz S finds out from his son's current teacher that the boy is struggling or if he sees for himself that the kid doesn't have the stamina, of course he should make different arrangements.   BTW, Realschule is not a second-class education.  Of the four people we were closest to, none was Gymnasium-educated.  But one was an engineer, one a teacher, one retired as a school principal, and the fourth was a lecturer at LMU and is also a playwright.

It all depends on the individual child.  Thirteen is indeed old to be plunged into a new culture and language.  But there are children and then there are children.  A child who's linguistically gifted can do just fine.  My oldest son and his younger sister picked up German like a house on fire.  He was fourteen and he was put back a year in Gymnasium, where he began learning both French and German.  It was only my middle child who had difficulty, and even she became fluent in German (Realschule), though it took her more time.  My third child, only eleven, became fluent in German, Bayrisch, and French.  Ask your son's English teacher what s/he thinks of his abilities.

Isn't there usually an option to substitute a class in Ethics for the Religion class?

Oh, dear.  I hope @gaberlunzi realizes I'm not agreeing with him.

Come on, Friday, get a move on!

From bad to worse.

Well, that saves us the effort of having to pack up all the Mexican aid and send it back to them.   Swear to God, this 'President' makes me so poor and sick.

There's currently a story on Facebook by a woman who suffered a fall with injuries.  She has a million excuses/reasons why she can't get compensation.  Don't be like her, @ITboy; she's only hurting herself, but how you act now will impact your children's lives for years. Follow @bramble's advice: ' So before you do anything at all, please go seek advice from a specialised lawyer immediately for clarification and ease of mind, even if you have to borrow 200 Euros.'