Science on short notice

I got into a postition in my class I'm teaching the other day where, due to an interesting question raised by a student, I was, immediatly and with warning, called upon to explain Darwin's theory of evolution.

"OK," I thought silently. "Evolution." As often when I panic, a diagram seemed like the solution. The face of my highschool bio teacher swam before my vision. Students in my class sat unmoving, pens poised over their notebooks to take down the essential explanation of Darwin's theory.

I steeled myself. I drew two turtles on the blackboard. One had a normal shell, the other had a big curling spike on top of its shell.

I told how the turtle with the spike was a mutant. But--lo!--the turtles lived on an island where a giant bird was in the habit of attacking turtles by landing on their shells and then commencing an attack (of some sort, attack details not important, class). And the mutant turtle's spike foiled the attack bird! Thus, the mutant turtle would have many small turtle babies, while the "normal" turtle had fewer. Evolution.

Jealous of our freedom: the international theme song

My reader may recall when I was hangin' out in a beer garden in Berlin near the zoo (don't try to pronounce that word for an animal park in German) with other people from the U.S. and our fellow beer garden patrons were giving us dirty looks (probably due to our excessive frivolity, but of course not excessive to me!) and we realized that it was because: They were just jealous of our freedom.

Recall this?

I found out lately when one of the other people who engaged in frivolity at the beer garden went to yet another foreign country that: some English guy in London made up a song about this to that song that is like "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"

The song goes:

Don't you wish your country was free like me?
Don't you wish your country had democracy?
Don't you? Don't you?
Don't you? Dont' you?

You were not a dork! As far as we know.

I would say, for sure go to your 10 year high school reunion. Even if you were a total dork in high school. 'Cause if you were a total dork, you'll probably find that it'll take at least a day for people to realize that you were a dork, because they don't have any memory of you. Only until you hail some totally lame dude as "a total player" will your former classmates around you recall that yes! you were a dork--that's why you think that guy was a player! And they will politely point out that the guy you named a "player" did date a lot of women, but they were all freshman when we were seniors, and they all went to other high schools. And everyone know what that means.

It was a cocktail party with 100 people, some of whom you are best buds with now, some of whom you haven't talked to in years but happen to recall are totally cool, and some of whom are total tools (and you just avoid that last crowd!). And, your fantastic date! (One guy wrote on his nametag "insignificant other" of an alum). Oh, and a few teachers boozin' it up. I apologized to one for completely disrupting her class when she taught me sophmore year, but she didn't seem to hold it against me. Anyway, she wasn't the teacher whose houseplants I tossed out the classroom window (thereby garnering the esteem of my peers).

Did you see that head butt??!

I told everyone that I was cheering for France because Italy plays so dirty. Hmm, maybe not so much, eh?

The bounty of the ocean

In German class this morning, one of my fellow students was describing edible ocean-dwelling creatures such as shrimp and scallops, known collectively in English (on menus at cheesy Italian restaurants) as ´the fruit of the sea.´ In German it´s also called "sea fruit." The guy in my class, however, called it (in German) "lake vegetables." But, I mean, you could tell what he meant--"sea fruit," "lake vegetables," what´s the difference really? Aren´t we all living in one world? Let´s all get together and love another. Right now.

German, the language you already speak

I saw this poster at the college where I started taking German, it said "German: The language you already speak!" It had a picture, for example, of a bed (das Bett), a bus (das Bus), a dog (das Hund).

Then I got to Germany and found that in fact, I do not already speak German.

A few days ago I was chatting (in German) with my friend and I wanted to tell her that something "seemed to me to be..." But instead I alarmed her by saying: "It is looking at me." She was like, "What is looking at you? Something in the air? Is "it" all around? Does it always watch you?"

Es seht mich an, folks. What can I do?

Delinquence

This sadly neglected blog has only the blogger's lack of access to e-mail to blame. I resolved to stop paying the surly man at the internet cafe 1 euro per hour and instead to bike up to Potsdamer Platz where Sony inc. kindly provides a free wireless network. But my laptop battery only lasts about an hour and a half, so I don't get much of a chance to blog.

Pictured is the house where I'm gonna live in Sept. See the giant rose bush growing over the door?

In other news, I have undertaken the usual summer experiments, such as 'how long can I go without washing my hair?', 'can I stand to eat that for the fourth meal in a row?', and 'is it possible to schedule my laundry so that I arrive back in the U.S. with only clean cloths?'

I have some complaints about soccer: 1) penalty kicks and 2) bad calls by refs that decide games--they need the replay! But I'm unable to stop watching soccer, whenever a game is on I drop everything. Too bad that I will miss the final, which is in Berlin, and during which the accursed honking may "reach its crescendo," as Mom said.