weird words

An update from the airing cupboard

2020-11-18T08:05:38Z

So, school? Yeah, I'm not there. I'll tell you why in a bit.

After the autumn break we all returned to school, now with our masks on our faces at all times (except for when we're eating and yes, colleagues, I'm not happy about that, in our tiny staffroom for the ten or so people on our team). How are we making school safer? We open the windows. We close the windows. Every twenty minutes. For five minutes. Preferably all the windows - provided they work and they're unlocked. I've managed to acquire keys for the windows in both our buildings, so I'm a professional opener of windows now.

If you want to know about Germans and their "Lüften" obsession, there's a Guardian article about our "sophisticated hinge technology.

Numbers went up. A city near me wanted the schools to go hybrid - half the school at home, the other half in the classroom, so that we get a little more distance between pupils halving the risk of infection. No, not allowed the higher ups said. Meanwhile, the number of students with infections or quarantining was rising. The first students who had caught Corona in the holidays returned. (Oh and there were the kids who missed the first week after the break because their parents had taken them abroad on a holiday and the kids were in quarantine and we have to count that as an excused absence.) When a student tests positive, the kids sitting next to them are sent home and wait for a phone call from the local health authority. Front row kids get the chance of sending a teacher home.

Anyway, we're wearing our face coverings, opening the windows, providing those in quarantine with things to do online and doing our usual job, teaching, preparing, marking. Parent-teacher-conferences we do by phone this year, and most conferences were cancelled. I went to only one and guess what? One of the teachers there had caught it. We had met in the assembly hall, with covered faces and lots of space between chairs.

So, this was fine. Except some of us were using our Track-and-trace-app and so I got the red card on Monday morning. At least I assume, that it was the conference. Managed to get a test Monday night and now I'm sitting at home and waiting for the result, so I can go back to school. I feel bad, not because I have symptoms or because I'm worried that I caught it, but because the situation at school is mad. We had 27 teachers absent yesterday, including me.

If more had downloaded the app, things would be worse and we would have had to close half the school, I think. Or maybe we shouldn't have had that conference at all.

And then, all day yesterday, the system we use for distance teaching was inaccessible. It's back up, so I can check on my students' work and then later get on top of my marking.

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Masks (pt. I)

2020-09-17T18:04:11Z

Getting used to the new rules isn't easy for everyone.

When you sit at your desk, you don't have to wear the mask, it doesn't matter that you're right next to someone. But a lot of the pupils decide to keep it on - they don't want to catch the virus and take it home or they want to protect their German teacher who was so ill last year. Or their mum or their grandpa.

But some enjoy that little bit of freedom, this feeling of normalcy. It's short enough. When you leave your seat, you have to pull that little bit of cloth over your mouth and nose.
You have to wear it in the corridors and outside in the playground. Even if you're two metres away from everyone, you have to wear it. It's tiresome. There's a loophole though: Of course you're allowed to eat and drink and that's when you can pull down the mask for a while.

For the teachers, the rules are a little different - you can only remove your mask in the classroom when you're at least 1.5 metres away from the pupils. And of course, you have to wear it in the corridors like everyone else.

The doors and the windows stay open. It's supposed to help. Sometimes it's a distraction - when that teacher walks down the corridor without his mask! Outrageous! "That's not okay, Miss!"

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Negative.

2020-08-27T20:50:09Z

First things first: the kid's Corona test was negative. The wait took longer than for the voluntary teacher tests. For those there is an online platform & you get your results within 24 hours or less. The kid's doctor gets the test results when the lab guy comes in once a day (or he gets a fax). Germany is a digital wonderland!

I'm sure this wasn't his last test though because our Ministerpräsident has decided that masks in classrooms won't be necessary anymore although they are still to be worn in the corridors and in the playground ("where you can't keep your distance"). There is no space in classrooms! Two kids share a desk and there's less than half a metre between desks. Masks aren't perfect but they gave me a little bit of confidence to interact with the students.
We'll see how that goes. There are already individual classes and whole schools in quarantine with cases among staff and students. I'm sure the number won't decrease now.

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Breathing.

2020-08-20T19:22:47Z

There aren't any real breathing problems with the masks. You just lift the mask and have a sip from your bottle. The heat doesn't help and that's why several days have been shortened. The German term for it is "hitzefrei" - when it's too hot for regular lessons. There are guidelines - 28° C in a classroom at 10 o'clock or so it is said. Usually the older students have to stay on but this year the powers that be have decided that it's too hot for them, too. Everyone - including the teachers - keeps waiting for the message on the intercom that today or tomorrow the lessons end earlier. And then there's cheering and everyone breathes a little lighter despite the masks.

There was one incident though but it wasn't connected to the special Corona circumstances.

The lesson over, he came back inside, choking back tears, his arms held high over his head. A classmate had punched him, hard, taking his breath away. He hadn't really given a reason, just to teach him a lesson because he was always saying stuff. But that wasn't actually true, he hadn't. Not for a long time.

The next day, the culprit was forthcoming with an explanation: That one bad word "Hurensohn" was enough for him. That's the reason they always give, as if that made it any better. They will use it freely and half the time they laugh it off. They should know by now that it doesn't impress us and that we don't accept it as an excuse.

It's true, the boy who got punched has a sharp tongue (and he can be bitingly funny). He's not a fighter though nor an athlete, so he needed to be put into his place. That's what another classmate told me later. "One punch is enough, miss, he won't try it again. You have to do it or he will keep making his comments."

A jester's life is dangerous.

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School in the times of Corona.

2020-08-16T10:06:04Z

OK, now that the pictures have gone - I had them all on photobucket and they wanted me to pay for their not-so-great site - I need to do something with this.

Pictures will go on instagram and/or twitter.

So, this is going to be my school journal (again) - writing down how we're coping with COVID with all the rules and regulations and so on.

Here's the basics:

We're back at school with full classrooms and rising numbers of infections.

Thus the powers that be decided on mandatory masks in all secondary schools outside and inside (so far only until the end of month, but I expect this to be extended).
Teachers can forego the mask if they're at least 1.5 m away from the students.
We're meant to open the windows a lot to get rid of any contaminated aerosols.

Teachers can get a free test every two weeks - I had my first one on Friday. Results are posted online and it was surprisingly quick - got a "negative" yesterday afternoon.

That's it for now.
Any questions?

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In memoriam.

2019-02-04T18:22:13Z

( Fragment )

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Thin ice.

2019-01-03T16:44:02Z

The other day I saw a pigeon drown. At first, I didn't know what it was - was that a duck bobbing up and then down again in the pond? No, this bird was smaller and grey. It must have misjudged the thickness of the layer of ice on the pond, mistaking it for solid ground. The ice had turned out to be much too thin to take the pigeon's weight and it had plunged into the water, close to the small island in the pond's middle but much too far to reach for a bird unused to swimming. It came up again but couldn't stay upright, its head landing in the water again. And then it stopped moving.

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Happy New Year

2019-01-01T12:19:33Z

Wishing you a lovely 2019 -

may it be soft on you and full of sunshine.

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Boxing Day Walk.

2018-12-28T18:08:40Z

We decided to find a new destination for our traditional Boxing Day Walk, but we didn't want to drive too far. We usually end up somewhere in the Naturpark Schwalm-Nette and this time we started our walk in a tiny little village called Schwaam.

( Walking )

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On the London underground.

2018-06-01T17:22:21Z

He was checking his selfie game on his phone, arranging his curls & his facial expression.

She was looking at her compact mirror, applying liquid make-up, putting on lipstick & her smile.

They sat only two seats apart but they were totally oblivious of each other and of the family of three sitting opposite them.

He was young and very pretty - alabaster skin, dark curls and a full lips. His long legs spread out, he leaned back into his seat. He hled his phone at the perfect angle, looking at himself full of concentration, his hand messing up his curls and then just for a second he became completely still, his eyes locked onto a spot in the distance, his sensuous lips pouting.

She was a little older, Asian and tired, but that's what the liquid make-up was for. With quick strokes she spread it across her face, taking care to fix the dark circles under her eyes and checking her progress in the small round mirror in her other hand. Sitting up straight, she replaced the make-up bottle with a lipstick and continued her transformation.

Such intimate moments shared with strangers.

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Hamburg: Monday.

2018-02-22T20:09:28Z

( Pictures and German under here )

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Hamburg: Sunday. Part II.

2018-02-20T17:32:26Z

Continued from last post:

( Pictures and German )

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Hamburg: Sunday. Part I

2018-02-17T17:55:56Z

Sunday morning started with snow.

( German and pictures )

The Alster looks pretty on a snowy soggy day. The kid gets wet feet, so we return to the hotel by bus.

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Hamburg: The journey

2018-02-17T15:52:21Z

We spent part of the crazy carnival days away from the crazy going to Hamburg by train. Here is my account of the journey - in German.

( Cut for German: Die Fahrt )

English summary: The local train we should have taken to big city to take the fast train was delayed because people were walking near the tracks. We had to improvise and took another fast train an hour later. Then changing trains there were problems again: the train we caught with not much time to spare turned out to have a technical fault so we had to change again. Still, despite all this enjoyed the comfort of first class train travel.

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Odonata. Libellen.

2017-06-04T14:45:21Z

German calls them Libellen.

English has two words for them - dragonflies for the suborder Anisoptera and damselflies for the suborder Zygoptera.

( Pictures )

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Picture dump: Flowers and butterflies in May.

2017-06-02T14:29:26Z

The river and adjacent pond with parkland are within comfortable walking distance, so whenever there was an hour to spare I walked over (or I stopped on the way home from work in the last couple of days) to take some pictures.

I've been posting them over on twitter sista_ray but I also want to dump them here in one place. I've started experimenting with twitter moments - which is a handy way to group tweets. Still, I can't quite let go of dreamdwidth and even livejournal (grudgingly accepted the TOS to keep up with what's left of my friendslist).

( Pictures )

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Yellow iris at the pond.

2017-05-17T09:33:59Z

Have some pictures from last week when the th flowers were still very new - now there is much more but I'm at home nursing a cold.

In German Iris pseudacorus is called Sumpf-Schwertlilie or Gelbe Schwertlilie or Wasser-Schwertlilie (swamp, yellow or water sword lily). For some reason even though they are not closely related to lilies, the whole genus of Iris (a word which is in use in German, too) = Schwertlilie. I can see where the sword comes from - the leaves.

Well, the yellow iris or yellow flag is quite common around here - and it is an invasive species in other parts of the world.

( Pictures )

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Laach Lake

2017-04-23T20:01:55Z

In German Laacher See - or Lake Lake, as Laach is from Old High German lacha - which is related to English lake of course.

( Read more... )

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Maar III.

2017-04-21T18:02:26Z

I am starting this with a map of the three maars in Daun:

( Read more... )

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Maar II.

2017-04-19T11:45:16Z

After walking half-way around Schalkenmehrener Maar, it was time to tackle the next maar which is called Weinfelder Maar after a small chapel plus cemetery left over from a village abandoned in the 16th century because of the plague. Alternatively, it is also known as Totenmaar or Maar of the Dead.

And right away, the atmosphere is different - it also didn't help that the blue skies had given way to grey clouds:

( Read more... )

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Maar.

2017-04-18T10:18:25Z

You may know the common German word for lake, which is der See. Yes, it looks a lot like sea, but that's more commonly known as das Meer unless you're being poetic and then you can call it die See. German is NOT straightforward - a claim I've heard recently and which I find a little naive.

To make it all the more complicated there is also das Maar, which is a special kind of lake (and even that is not always true).

The word derives from the dialect of the Eifel region for the lakes of the region and in its most scientific definition it pertains to a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). Thanks, wikipedia! Often, these craters fill with water and then you get a Maar lake, but they also dry out (on their own or through human intervention) and then they become known as dry maars or Trockenmaare.

Among the most famous Maare are three lakes situated in close proximity in the Eifel near Daun. Here is one of them, the Schalkenmehrener Maar named for the village of Schalkenmehren which you can see in the background.

( Read more... )

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Saturday a week ago.

2017-04-01T15:59:55Z

A week ago on Saturday we took out the bikes for the first excursion of the year.

The weather was so beautiful and we didn't want to go on Sunday when everyone else was going to be outside.
We headed off in a different direction this time, because we were hoping the kid would be able to handle a longer trip. (He was great.)

( Pictures )

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Thursday bees and flowers.

2017-03-26T16:23:43Z

( Bienchen und Bl�mchen )

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Frost pictures photodump.

2017-01-03T19:14:24Z

( Magic )

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Autumn picture dump.

2016-10-09T17:48:24Z

Autumn at the playground.

Took the bikes out yesterday and had a look at a playground that we hadn't been to. The kid got a handy little map at school showing all the best spots in town, so there was a new place to discover.

Kid liked it - I didn't think it was that spectacular but one of the better-maintained ones around.

While the kid played, I took my first real autumn pictures of the season.

( Autumn at the playground )

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