Outside World
The first of my two months of German classes has ended. The last day was a sad affair (most students stay only for a month); gloomy, antsy, overtired, somewhat teary-eyed, and with what I can only call a certain dampness to it. The weather was gray and humid. Our goodbyes were quiet and there was none of the rolls of laughter one could usually hear pouring into the corridor when more than four people are gathered in the kitchen from my housing unit. There were hugs and exchanged gifts and pressed hands and promises to keep in touch and try to visit one another — we're not fool enough not to realize how hard these promises can be to hold when some live in South America and others in Australia.
All that to say I had a great time and met people I truly get along really well with. (Also, my German has improved ten-folds and I'm well on my way to my 2004 level.)
One of the things that fascinated me most during this month was my social interactions with people from backgrounds so different from what I'm used to. I had hung out with people slightly younger or much older than I, but they were either family or fellow researchers. I had hung out with people from all sorts of different countries and cultures, but they were all fellow grad students. I had hung out with people with various jobs, but they were all from my country and my culture. Never before had I spent so much time discussing with people who only have in common with me their interest for the German language.
The people I spoke the most with? A 30-year-old Brazilian school teacher. A 36-year-old Hungarian state employee. A 19-year-old Brazilian law student. A 30-year-old stay-at-home Russian mother. And so on.
In other words, people who have little to do with computers. Who don't know anything about research. Who are exposed to quite different social and political issues. People who, despite being for the most part language nerds, also reminded me how hostile the outside world can be. Not that they were overtly or purposefully aggressive, on the contrary.
There were the many times questions involving numbers or technology were directly addressed to the men.
There were the many times people only heard my trip-planning or organizing suggestions when repeated by a man.
There was the one time when a 20-year-old Brazilian gal said she admired women "because they work all day long at their job and when they go home the must clean and cook and take care of the children and tend to their husband" and the reactions I've had when I said it's also possible to find a man who can take care of himself and do his share of the cleaning and cooking and child care and no it's not called "helping". Let's just say the opinion of a single woman on what kind of boyfriend to get wasn't particularly welcome and I left this conversation quivering with rage and with the sole support of (against all stereotypes) a thirty or forty-year-old man from Latin America. Shortly after that our teacher "confessed" her husband does all the cooking and half the women in the class exclaimed at how lucky she is to get so much help from her husband.
There was the one time when we discussed marriage in class and a woman yelled at me that all the normal women of the world dream of their wedding day from their childhood onward. Which hurt even though another one of the students was here to confirm she'd never spent hours picturing herself in a white dress. A few minutes before one of the students had decided to move from the group writing up arguments in favor of marriage to the group writing up arguments against it just because the women in this first group were so fanatic about it.
There was the one time when some of the older women found normal that a 19-year-old boy didn't know how to operate a washing machine but not that a 20-year-old girl wouldn't want to cook.
There was the one time when a young man wouldn't believe that, yes, women can still earn less money than men for similar jobs with similar qualifications.
There was the one time when we saw a movie with a young woman with mental anorexia and a young man with Tourette's and another young man with a compulsive-obsessive disorder and so many people found that funny. Cause letting yourself die or not being able to drive a car because of your twitches or being unable to relax when you're convinced to be surrounded by harmful germs is just hilarious. Didn't you know I have no sense of humor? I'm a fucking feminist for God's sake.
There was the one time when someone told me they thought homosexuality was icky.
So despite the surreality of being submerged in a totally different environment with new people you practically live with day and night; despite the beautiful day trips and the strong links and the amazing conversation; despite the excitement and this feeling of reliving our summer camp days, running on too little sleep and too much sugar and (nowadays) caffeine; despite the excellence of the classes and efficiency of the teaching methods; despite the sweet memories... this month was also a big slap in my face from the real world.
And it's been hard to articulate, because I don't want to whine that yeah everything was great but really do people have to be such conservative asshats, and I don't want to give the impression that I'm so uptight it's the only thing I'm getting from this class (because, no, far from it).
It's just that it's almost like I'm doing this not fitting in thing on purpose.
