Yesterday I walked 20 minutes in snowy, freezing weather to the doctor's office. That's cool..and..only to find out that I have Bronchitis. My host mom is too eco-friendly to use a car for this small distance. I actually got kind of lost, until I suddenly saw my host brother heading to the doctor's office as well (he wanted to get a check up to see if he could donate plasma for money). After waiting for about 45 minutes, the doctor finally called my name..but he said, "Drija," which isn't my name at all. In the end, he said "das Mädchen," and well, I guess he thought I was just a kid. Turns out that the secretary had used my middle name (Chinese) as my first name. Anyways, I went inside, and he asked me to talk about my symptoms, which I did completely in German. Then, he told me to take my top off (if I was in the US, I would have been so shocked, but this is Germany, so I guess it's expected), and had me breathe deeply so he could use his stethoscope to listen to my ever almost non-existent heartbeat. I remember this one time in Biology when we did a few runs around the school for a beat count, and even after I completed all the laps, the teacher had the hardest time getting my pulse.
Anyways, I've detoured again.
So after about 5 minutes in the office, the doctor gives me a prescription (printed out from the computer--how cool is that?) and tells me to stay home until 3/1. I went home, and my host mom had my host brother drop the prescription off at the Apotheke. So when my host brother went back to get the medicine, the Apotheke didn't have it ready..and guess what they did? They delivered it to our house at 10 PM. I was so surprised they would do that--the pharmacy isn't really near our house--about a 20 minute car ride. That was so nice of them :) When I opened the bag, I saw that the box even had Braille on it! Even though the blind use Braille in the US too, I rarely see it in public places. Did you know that EU coins are also designed so that the blind can tell which coin is which? Absolutely a genius idea.
Perspectives
I still ended up going to school today even though I was supposed to stay home, because heute was the new Thai exchange student's first day of school. When we got on the bus, a student said, "Hey, the Asian brought another Asian!" Yeah, laugh all you want, immature people.
The secretary basically gave the exchange student the same schedule as mine (with a few changes). English was good--I could explain stuff to her, and she was able to understand most of it. Then she had Bio (which I switched out of, because I knew it was literally the crappiest class and had no language advantage for me whatsoever), and I had her sit next to the two smartest and nicest girls in the class :) Things worked out pretty well, but as soon as she walked out of that class and bumped into me on the way back to the main building, she said 2 things:
"That was the worst class ever. All I did was look around and stare into space. I didn't understand anything he said."
and
"It's really hard to make friends here."
Yep, and that's what you learn on the first day of school.
Then came History class. I really like History. It's one of my favorite subjects, and we are currently learning about Spanish colonization, which is something I'm pretty interested in. There are so many philosophical questions that come out of those discussions. However, the teacher isn't my favorite. She's young and looks like someone who would be flexible in her teaching style, but is simply not. When she handed out papers, she didn't give the exchange student one. Then, she said she would go and copy more, but didn't. Moreover, she never asked the exchange student to introduce herself to the class, and didn't even bother to ask who she was until the end of the lesson. When I tried to explain to her what we were doing, the teacher shushed me loudly and told me that I wasn't allowed to talk. I don't know about you, but that made me feel quite uncomfortable. What a welcoming classroom that is!
When I got home, I told my host mom about this, and about how I thought it was rude. My host mom had no sympathy, and replied, "Well, the teacher doesn't know how long she's staying for, so that's why she didn't give her a paper." No. Just no. Maybe I'm a little more sensitive on this matter as it relates to education and teaching, but really? If a teacher had a new student, would she not care to get to know her a bit? Students, whatever. They can choose who to be friends with. But the teacher? I don't think that's acceptable. Perhaps Germans have a different way of thinking, or believe this is normal. I for one, do not, and I'll say that loud and clear.
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| Feel the Braille :) |
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