AMD 2 - Matthew Simpson

For this AMD, I followed the advice of the Hausaufgaben schedule and read read about Rebecca's trip abroad to Deutschland. The things she wrote about were very insightful.

The first thing that jumped out at me was her description of what it is like to live in Germany. She said that she is learning more about the US than she ever thought she would and that "you have to be able to step out of something to see it more clearly." That thought really resonates with me. It is a very similar experience to the one I had last semester in German 101. Starting with the basics, you go back to not even being able to string together a proper sentence. You have to learn new vocabulary, new cases, new almost everything. I don't ever think about those kinds of things in English, they just seem to come so naturally, since it is my first language and all. But it's exactly like Rebecca said, sometimes you need to take a step back to see things clearly.

Another thing that I found rather profound was how she had to re-learn how to do even the simplest of tasks. She mentions how sorting her trash, doing laundry, and shopping for groceries are all so strange because of different customs. Even things as simple as measuring temperature and volume are different! Measuring may not be totally new, but the measuring systems no doubt take some time to get used to. It's astounding to think that this is happening all over the world. There are countless cities and countries one could visit and they all could do some simple, everyday task quite differently. Even with technology like we have today that enables constant transmission of culture.

That's all I'm gonna write about, but I would definitely recommend reading through Rebecca's account of her trip. It's full of little epiphanies like this, it's almost like going there yourself! Okay, not quite, but about as close as any of us will get during this semester.

As Rebecca likes to end...

Tschuess!