The first article was "Sex, Smut and Shock." This discusses the Bild, a magazine that uses scandalistic stories about people around the world. It ends with the editor looking down apon the British Sun, for publishing a picture of Germany's chancelor Angela Merkel naked.
The next article "German Privacy" is quite interesting because to me it is natural to knock and either wait till someone comes to the door or someone says to come in, I'm not so sure if I would be comfortable with just barging into an office for fear of interupting, as the article said.
The final article about the high IQ's in Germany, especially when it comes to the garbage. It is really cool that they are so environmental. I was unsure when it said they divide it all up but that the garbage trucks don't seperate them, does that mean that the garbage ends up all together anyway? And finally I found it kinda entertaining that you can only sort your garbage during the week.

I listened to music on youtube. I have found a lot of die Prinzen songs helpful to see a lot of what we learn in class in action. The first die Prinzen song I listened to was "Millionar." In a few cases the song uses "doch" which we have used in class. It also uses dativ case by changing mein to meinem.
The second song was "Kussen Verboten," I noticed right off when they used the modal verb "willst" "mich haben" also in the next statement "muss" it put "sagen" to the end. Also, what we just learned with position zero, a clause started with dass and then verb subject..."kann ich." Also it used some dativ prepositions, "bei" which then changed me dativ to "mir." There were other dativ prepositions including nach.

I found it interesting that people don't use Entschuldigung in Germany. This makes sense because I find myself when I accidentally bump into someone saying excuse me. The next article was particularly interesting because sex is such a private matter. Although from my own travel experience I did notice that sexuality wasn't as big of an issue, there were explicit pictures on billboards and sides of buildings which is something you would never see here without people cringing.
In the next article I agree, it would be a pain to always have to have some Euros on you to use the bathroom! My teacher in high school always said once you find a bathroom that is free keep that spot in mind for next time you want to use the bathroom.
The whole article about catching a man or woman in Germany is interesting because someone being too forward isn't quite the same here. I feel like they use much more sutble moves, with looks.
It seems that women are taking over Germany. The rise in women in paid jobs I feel is a change from what I would have thought of a social role of women. I wonder if it has anything to do with their chancelor being a woman?

For this chapter AMD I looked up an article about culture in Germany. It had the article written auf Deutsch und auf Englisch option. I read the auf Deutsch first and took time to look at it and look at sentence structure and subject-verb agreement, and of course for content. I then looked at the auf Englisch to see how I did understanding the article. There was a lot of words that I wasn't able to figure out in the article but for the most part I understood what the article was portraying about Luzerner Fasnacht. Such as Fasnacht, I thought it might have something about night, but it carnival. I chose the article based in Luzern, Switzerland because I had been there and had an idea of the idea.

"Stay off the Bike Path!" was interesting. I did notice when I was in Frankfurt that there were often times that our guide would say watch before you cross the bike path when getting off the bus. Here having a bell seems to be strange but this article makes it seem wow, good thing they have to have a bell because when looking at the city structures and stuff I can see myself wandering into the way of bikers without realizing. In the "The Red Dictator" it was interesting that a person would actually speed up. Whenever I am driving in busy downtowns I'm always looking out for pedestrians, but maybe that is because over here people don't obey the red hand. This connected to the last reading about the biking because although you may be looking for cars, the bike path is between the sidewalk and the road and you just may not look for them which could result in a collision between you and a biker. Very intriguing to think about and connect it to how things are over here.
Illogical Logic itself is kinda confusing in thought. I am not sure I'd be aware of this and I'd end up being the person dolling out cash despite knowing this!
The train systems in Europe that I have traveled on are complex, there are colors and several levels and numbers, so you would think that they would be understanding. I found it interesting that the people blend themselves in with anyone else so that when boarding the train you really do not know if there is someone checking tickets or not. The honor system is to a point, because I'd be worried everytime to make sure I have a ticket.
It is quite humorous that one there are support groups for unorganized people, but also that the signs were switched. You would really have to know which way the road was going in order to not be mixed up.

For this weeks activity I looked up some songs on Youtube.com that had some words that are relevant to what we are learning in class. For instance, one song, by die Prinzen "Was soll ich ihr schenken?" There were also some words I was unfamiliar with that I looked up, such as schenken which is give as in a gift. We just learned soll in this chapter and it was used in this song several times and it shows how when you use soll the verb goes to the end of the sentence as in the title was SOLL ich ihr SCHENKEN.
Another song I looked at was again by Die Prinzen, "Mein Fahrrad." In the last chapter we learned mein. In this song they use "denn" which in the last chapter we learned the use of this compared to aber, sondern...etc. Then there is this sentence that I noticed a seperable verb "Denn das macht mich gar nicht an" anmachen is seperated.
There were several other songs I listened to, such as Kussen Verboten and Haus am See. But the two songs above I was definately able to look at and relate to class and was able to see some things we learned in class put into action.

I found the first article interesting, particularly how it started out. When I visited Munich, we walked around biergartens and we drove by where the Oktoberfest tents are set up. It was interesting reading this and being able to picture what they are talking about. Also, they say if Germans are stereotyped they'd be in lederhosen, which although it is traditional garb, I noticed some people wearing them around the larger cities, although it didn't seem to common. It also wasn't weird to see people drinking beer during lunch at the cafe's around a square, like the article said, it's the national drink. I wasn't aware of all the different types of beers. I couldn' t help but laugh at the fact that it gave a "hangover risk."
In the second article about the problems of the drinking, I feel that there are similar discussions in the U.S. over the safety of drinking, but beer is so ingrained into the German way of life I find this to be a much more difficult task in Germany.
The last article I decided to read was the organic Germany. When you are in Germany, everything is non-invasive of the surrounding environment it seems. When you get into the country side it is fresh air, or at least in the parts I was in. Also, there are few stores that supply everything like Wal*mart. They have a bakery, then there is a farmers market type place. I wish that it was easier to buy organic food in the U.S. as easily as this article says, because the gene minipulation in the U.S. food is freaky. I am all for the German eco-centric society!

Over fall break my friend Michaela and I called our friend Doro. Doro lives outside of Frankfurt and Michaela has vonage so we called and talked to Doro in German for about an hour. She helped me with some of my pronunciation with things that we have learned. She also taught me how to say new words that are their lingo, which I am unsure of their spelling. But before we were able to talk to Doro we talked with her mom who answered the call. Michaela let her mom know that it was us calling, and I noticed like I have in the past that they answer the phone and state their last name. Then I asked, "Wo ist Doro?" "Ist sie in der Stadt?" Doro's Mutter replied, "Nein, sie ist in ihre Zimmer." Then we talked to Doro and I told her what I was learning in class and used as much German as I could in the conversation.

For this weeks AMD I read the professors suggestion " Duden publishes 'Words of the Decade' Volume." I read over the words that have changed meaning over the decade and the many meanings they hold. Not only that, but over words that have come from our own language, English. I found it interesting to see even in the modern technology names, the words were combined into one long word.
I found it interesting how they discussed the Eastern German walk/don't walk signs and how they were supposed to go away after the reunification of Germany. Also that a lot of Russian words made their way into the Germanic language as well during those years of the Cold War.

I found the readings all particularly interesting. In particular, the second scenario in the Stare Down article. Since I live on north campus, I ride the Michigan buses daily. I myself on the bus never know where exactly to rest my gaze, as it says the person across the aisle stared down the one looking at the newspaper. I feel like in the U.S. we tend to look down at our laps as I noticed after reading this article, or people pre occupied themselves with their cell phones. The article says that there are two basic reasons going back to Cold War seperation of East/West Germany. And as the article sums up, I do remember in my childhood being told that its not polite to stare, I found that interesting because I never would have thought of where possibly staring has become such an awkward activity in our culture.
Also in the Brutally Honest one, I feel politeness is always over honesty in our everyday social life. But the Germans have it right, saying no is not a way of attempting to hurt ones feelings its just giving an honest answer, which ultimately leads to less confusion between aquaintences and friends. If I eat the fruitcake, maybe next time the Grandma will make it again thinking that I actually liked it, when really I was just too polite to say otherwise. It is also interesting that there must be justification if your directness is opposed.
From my personal experience I've never noticed the pessimism of Germans because I've always felt they are fun, easy going people.

For a German Activity this week I watched die Weisse Rose. I found it particularly interesting to watch because in high school I learned about this resistence group. It followed the groups activities on their letters against the Nazi regime. The boys in the group had a lot of their information from when they themselves were fighting in WW2. Many of the members of die Weisse Rose went to Munich University.
Sophie Scholl was a character that particularly stood out to me. She also attended the university and helped gather materials. She was very brave in many of her ventures in procuring paper or postage stamps. And even when she was heading into her execution she seemed not afraid.
There were subtitles translating the German which was helpful in me understanding alot of what was going on, and the speed they spoke was much quicker than I myself am able to speak, but it was really cool when they would say things that I was able to understand.

How German is American

A particular fact that I found intriguing was the Native American Association of Germany. What is surprising is that they use war paint and feathers to imitate rituals done by in Germany, whereas in the U.S. I feel there would be much controversy over something like this.
Going further along in the reading, I was amused to see that areas of Pennsylvania in "Dutch country" are mistaken for early America, whereas the heritage is truely from Europe including Germany, this includes some of the Amish lifestyle as discussed later in the reading. Even in baseball the reference to beer and frankfurters is an important thing that has submerged into American culture that roots to Germany. Along with this idea of baseball is a large German population in Milwaukee, where their baseball team is the Brewers, also relating to German roots.
The Germans used to hold much patriotism of displaying the flag, now mostly during events such as the World Cup, which is seen in our culture today, we show much of our own pride through the symbolic flag. In this same section of the reading it talked about the pride in hyphening German-American. Not only did the immigrants hold pride in where they came from but also held and emphasis on being an American as well. This leaked into learning German but in the context of America, and how much of the education system comes from German values of education.
It was really intersting when they turned to pop culture with movies such as Bambi and Sound of Music and discussed those, but also bringing in McDonald's and naming all the Heidelberg's in the U.S. showing how widespread German communities are.
All the different phrases and words that are used in alot of everyday speaking came from German, and there are several examples in this reading that were particularly intriguing to me, such as "gabfest" and "how goes it?" I never realized that these came from German but the structure of the words and "-fest" itself are German and the word order is German when taking a closer look.