more picspam
Jun. 25th, 2005 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dream_labyrinthSo, another episode in "My Life - a Guided Tour"
Tired of those posts already? Well, bad luck. I have a digital camera at my disposal and intend to use it.
I've been quite good today.
I repaired some of my clothes.
I rode my bike to town to get rolls and bread. Way too hot for that, really. I could have passed for fresh out of the shower when I came back home. Though that might have been because I was racing against my imaginary competition, just like I always do. And, as always, I won. Really, I should get more serious imaginary competition.
Then I went out to get some strawberries. Of course, I needed to check whether the strawberry was any good. And after that one was found okay, I checked another one, just to be safe. Then I needed a break. And some strawberries to strenghten me.
Envious yet? Tehee. Really, I would offer you one, but you aren't here. Strawberries freshly picked, still warm from the sun, that's the best thing in life. But the ones I took back home, and ate with sugar and milk, were pretty tasty, too.
I then remembered I should have watered the plants on the cemetery. We planted them a few weeks ago and it has been rather dry for a while now. My Mom specifically asked me to check on them while she was gone, but of course I almost forgot. So when the sun stopped beating down quite so much and some clouds appeared, I watered the plants around the house (only the ones in the worst condition. I didn't want to set up the pump and really there's way too much plants to water them all with a can.) and on the cemetery.
I discovered that my father had not thrown away the leaking watering can. Instead, he's repaired it with duct tape. That doesn't change much in terms of leaking but I'm sure he feels better now.
Going to the cemetery, I realised once again the difference between the renovated steeple and the unrenovated rest of the church. What I really like on the cemetery, though, is the mausoleum. It's been built by one of the richer (or more stuck-up) families in the village. The family died out. I think the last generation consisted of just one daughter who married one or the other of my ancestors, those two families were forever intermarrying. The building's slowly getting covered by ivy and other green stuff, which is a pity. It's beautiful. It has these little angel reliefs, one on each side, it's a pity nobody notices.
At our part of the cemetery, I watered the plants on the newer graves. Which would be my grandfather on the left in the second row and my great-grandparents in the middle of the front row. My grandmother's brother died in WW 2. We added his name to his parents' headstone a while back. In the second row in the middle, the large grey stones, those are my great-great-great-grandparents, Albert the First and his wife. (In my grandmother's family, ever since that generation, the older boys were named Albert and the younger ones Bernhard. So my grandmother's brother was Albert the Fourth. His father was Albert the Third and the grave to the right of my great-grandparents, that's Albert the Second.)
For Americans, that is nothing strange. But in Germany, usually you only have a gravesite for around twenty years and then it's reused by somebody else. We don't have that much space. Where my grandfather lies now, that used to be the grave of some unimportant relative. As well as the space in front of that one, which is reserved for my parents.
I find it kind of cool to be able to trace your family back by simply going to the cemetery. Albert the First was born in 1836, that's pretty fantastic to have his grave still around. On the other hand, the person who made our family tree traced back the family to somewhat shady early recordings in the 1470s. I've always wanted to research that, but the archival situation is a bit difficult. I would not even know where to start, really. The family tree was made by my great-great-granduncle, and he a) listed his own line, the younger line (he was a Bernhard) as the main line and b) left no record as to where he found the information.
But anyway. Not that anybody really wanted to know that.
I find genealogy fascinating, that's all.
When I came back from the cemetery I took the dog for a walk.
They had promised thunderstorms for tonight, but really even though it was a bit cloudy and windy, it didn't look like an imminent thunderstorm to me. Until the sky turned an ominous dark grey. I ran home, got the laundry out of the garden (practising my skills of holding a leash without using my hands. It started to rain while I was running back inside with the dog. I ran around the house like crazy closing the windows. Up in my room, I had had both windows wide open. One had been closed by the wind, but with the curtain caught outside. By the time I was up there, the curtain was soaked. The other window was still open and the carpet was a bit wet. Within a few minutes, we went from sweltering heat to rain and hail so strong it looked like fog. The whole thunderwhower didn't last very long, but it provided quite a bit of much-needed water. So I'm not going to complain, even though my curtain's currently silently dripping water into a bucket.
I watched Pimp My Ride and jealously saw what can be made out of an old Mitsubishi. I wish they had that show in Germany. MTV Germany started "Pimp My Bike", but really, what is there to pimp on a bicycle?
For some reason, the TV program sucks these days. Hey, I know why. It's because I'm home and would actually have the time to watch TV.
So all I can do is write these boring LJ posts.
But for some real content: This morning, I saw a poster belonging to an advertising campaign of our current federal government. They're trying to convince us that the only reason our pupils sucked at the PISA study was because they aren't in school all day. Yeah right, it has nothing to do with the fact that our classes are too large and especially in cities a major percentage of the kids don't speak German. Or with the age-old equipment and the lack of teachers. If you put the same kids into the same old buildings with the same old equipment and the same overworked teachers, not until one but until four in the afternoon, miracles will happen.
Anyway, this poster had kids playing instruments. A guitar, drums, a girl singing into her hairbrush. And the caption said "School is the best time of the life. Now even for parents."
WTF???
a) I would question that "best time of your life" nonsense. Why should the best time of your life be over at eighteen, at the latest?
b) Why is it best for parents if they don't see their kids having fun?
Okay, I don't have kids myself. Maybe all parents want after giving birth is to give the smelly, whining thing to somebody who will take care of it and return a well-trained adult. But somehow, seeing my own parents, I don't really think so. I had gotten the impression that parents want to know what their kids do, they want to be part of their kids' lives. Am I so wrong there?
That is the whole problem I have with this approach to education. Schools are not supposed to teach you kids the facts of life and good manners and all that. I can see that for working parents, it's hard to do that and then they need help from professionals. But that should be more of an exception. What this is aiming at is requiring kids to stay in school the whole day, no matter what your parents do. I have seen that here in my province, where they did that with the schools. They had the nerve to call it "reliable primary school". What's so reliable in a school that won't give me my child back when I want it? Funnily enough, at the same time they decided that children of unemployed parents only had the right to a half-day in kindergarten, as they couldn't afford paying for all that time that wasn't actually necessary.
But back to the ad: Okay, kids can be quite noisy. Kids are hard work. but isn't that part of the joy in raising them?
And another thing: if you let other people raise your kids, how are they going to leanr your values, your traditions? And isn't that what makes a kid your kid? I have seen a boy act, look, think just the way his father does. They are not blood-realted, the father adopted the boy. But he had an influence on the kid, he helped him become the person he is. Would you want to give that up to a mere teacher?
In Israel, in the early years, they created the libbuz. A community that is supposed to be a working form of socialism. One thing in a kibbuz that is part of the life there is that a mother gives up her child shortly after birth. The kids are raised by a nanny, all kids of one kibbuz together in one house. While the kids are really small, the parents come by in the morning and evening to say hello. Later, they don't meet anymore on a parent-child level.
There are two things notable about this. One: The Israeli army and secret service recruit their best soldiers and agents from the kibbuzim. Secondly, the movement lost followers as young mothers decided to leave with their children.
When we talked about this in school, in tenth or eleventh grade (16 or 17 years of age), most of the girls in my class didn't understand why the women left. They said they had known before they would have to give away their children. They didn't realize that a pregnancy and giving birth might change the perspective. I suppose these are the women this campaign is aiming on.
I just hope they'll never have kids.
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So many pretty places and things, I wish I could come visit and see them all.
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Date: 2005-06-26 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 12:31 pm (UTC)I'll trade you blueberries for strawberries, how does that sound?
I liked your studies of the mausoleum details. Nicely done.
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Date: 2005-06-28 06:45 am (UTC)That's why I decided to just put links, so that everybody can decide whether or not to look at the pics.
Thanks, I do think the ones of the mausoleum came out great.
But it isn't so much my merit as good luck. I just push the button on the camera and hope that it comes out the way I'd like it to be.
Blueberries are fine, but unless you're talking about blueberry muffins, I'll stay with my strawberries. ;-) Thanks for the offer, though.
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Date: 2005-06-29 01:59 am (UTC)I actually like the concept of "reliable" times for school kids. It makes life way easier if you have to work and know the kids are safely taken care of until 4 pm. I have lived through more than two years of doing (part-time - 60%) work while first one, then two kids were at school. No fun if one kid's lessons start at 9:40 three times a week. Even less fun if the parents have to split their time off from work and still are unable to cover all the school holidays.
But as usual, what the politicians offer is neither thought through nor enough. So yes - very silly to not change the concept and just keep them at school for a few more hours.
The politicians are - as usual - panicking and acting hasty in the aftermath of yet another bunch of PISA results; we (in Hessen) now can have kids start school one full year before they are supposed to - but with the same ole teachers, the same ole methods, the same too-large classes and with a bunch of other kids that are 12 to 24 months older. Teh silliness! They should start thinking about changing the concepts, not the formalia.
I do agree with you on the matter of "who should be the person(s) to raise, educate and teach them values and traditions" wholeheartedly, though.
Trying to let your kids become sensible, caring and reliable people is the parents' duty, dammit! The teachers can help, can assist, but if someone chooses to have kids, they should give their best to not only have them but raise them. [/rant]
And I do not mean that people have to stay at home for that - I do by choice and for personal health reasons, but to each their own. There are enough examples of emotionally and intellectually abandoned kids whose parents are at home all day.
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Date: 2005-06-29 02:05 am (UTC)I looked it up in your gallery, though, and it looks very romantic.
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Date: 2005-06-29 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 02:48 am (UTC)And that is the thing I hate most about this idea.
In GDR, where the school system was by no means wonderful and severely influenced by politics, we had "Hort" before and after school, where kids would be supervised while doing their homework, playing, and whatnot. But it was not required, so stay-at-home parents could bring their kids to first lesson and let them come home after the last.
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Date: 2005-06-29 03:12 am (UTC)But obviously, everything you had back then was teh!ebil and had to be kicked out without revision. You know, there would have been a great opportunity to *merge* the two parts of the country, not let one eat the other up.
But that would have taken time for thinking - and the ability to think. Independantly. Not something you find much among our politicians.
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Date: 2005-06-30 05:00 am (UTC)If anybody had, in 1989 or early 1990, said something like "hey, let's take a break and think this through!", there would have been an outcry and a real revolution, IMO.
I suppose the politicians also were afraid that if they miss this chance, there might not be another one.
It's a pity they simply took over the GDR, not merged the countries. It was also unconstitutional, but as they deleted the preamble to the Grundgesetz a bit later, nobody remembers that it said that the Grundgesetz would only be valid until all German provinces would get together to work out a German constitution.