Being a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Germany is...

…sitting in a small boarding house room with 3 eighth graders, taking 2 hours to translate 3 cupcake recipes into English, and watching them polish off the bag of “real American” Starburst jelly beans I brought for them to try.

Side view of the school,
conveniently located on
Johann-Sebastian-Bach Str.

…playing the ten-fingers “I have never” game with my English reading group. They liked it so much we played it twice. This on the heels of a hot-seat question game. I now know what several of my students would do if they were the opposite gender. Interesting.

…being mobbed every day in the school courtyard by cute little 5^th graders who have a million questions . Did I mention they’re absolutely adorable? It warms my heart.

…walking to get ice cream in the city at night with two tenth graders while I quiz them on characterizations for their upcoming test.

…spending Friday afternoons drinking tea and reading my favorite teen books with an especially advanced student.

Sometimes it seems like being a teaching assistant encompasses everything BUT teaching. Don’t get me wrong—I DID spend a Monday evening tutoring session working through verb tenses with a 7^th grader. (Can AMERICAN 7^th graders even differentiate between present progressive and present perfect? Didn’t think so.) However, the life I lead here in the Harz Mountains is anything except for ordinary.

Landesgymnasium für Musik in Wernigerode, Germany--
the school, where I spend my "teaching hours" each week.

I spend time strolling among historic rainbow-colored half-timbered houses, consider a walk up to the CASTLE a normal activity and ride my bike to-and-from school along a railroad track where a steam-powered train—complete with black clouds pouring out of the smoke stack, water dripping onto the gravel as the train races past and stops traffic as it crosses through one of the three four-way intersections in town, and a whistle that momentarily drowns out ALL other sounds—passes through multiple times a day. Especially when the sun shines, I constantly have the feeling I’ve wandered into the setting of some fairy tale.

To be honest, there are times I wish this WERE a fairy tale so that I could slam the book shut, end the “adventure” and be back in Oregon—immediately. Being a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Germany is also…

…spending hours of my life online, “talking to my computer” and staying up ridiculously late in order to keep in touch with family and friends back home.

…getting sick innumerable numbers of time and spending whole weekends in bed.

…being frustrated and confused by cultural differences.

…feeling small and lonely.

At home, for instance, I may never sit in my kitchen, watching rain pelt down outside, accompanied by rolling thunder rumbles, and wonder just how I am going to get back to school for afternoon activities (Biking in thunder is probably a bad idea; walking half an hour one way isn’t an incredibly attractive option with a very. slowly. healing sprained ankle; even limping uphill to the bus stop 10 minutes away doesn’t help very much), but I would also never experience everything positive I listed above if I didn’t work through the everyday.

A random sculpture found
while wandering in Werni.

Precisely this may be the value of Fulbright’s worldwide exchange programs. Lasting cross-cultural connections don’t happen from abroad, and, especially in Germany, they need time to be planted, grow and bloom—to weather through the seasons.

Fulbright applicants are allowed to choose their own country, which provides just as much of a safety net or comfort zone as the individual chooses. When I decided to return to Germany, I had an idea of what I’d face, but living here long(er) term has still made a difference. My day-to-day life is occasionally so bizarre that I wouldn’t believe it if I weren’t experiencing it.

I left home, hoping to gain a fresh perspective, form new friendships, try out the EFL and Teaching Writing classes from senior year at WOU, improve my German, gain a million stories to tell and see some of the world.

It’s only been eight and half months, but I have accomplished all of that in full. Remaining time—however long—will enrich this understanding and, I’m sure, provide another hearty helping of both deeply confounding and utterly exhilarating times. Fulbright may be far from “normal” life, but it’s an amazing ride.

If traditional transportation doesn't suit your needs, you can hop on one of these horse-drawn wagons, operated year-round in Wernigerode. In winter, try a sleigh ride through the snow-covered woods!