Holiday Cheers and Jeers

Well, the discussion today was great - everybody had fun looking at their books last night, the teacher read the whole thing over the weekend and says she has never seen anything like it and said it was really interesting and she really liked it. Today we read some as part of class, and part of our homework is to read some more and come ready for discussion tomorrow.

So, I'm psyched. It really is a fun way to learn stuff. Several students made a point to come up to me today to say they really enjoyed the book, even one from Iraq!

We also went around the class today to talk about how Saint Nicholas is perceived in your home country. Nothing was terribly new to me, but one thing that distinctly stuck out was how the girl from Siberia said that nobody celebrated Christmas there. She said she had heard of maybe a few who did, but not anybody she knew. She said they exchanged gifts on New Year's Eve. At this point the lady from Tajikistan (a Muslim nonetheless) said, "it was the Communists, they put a stop to Christmas! The Soviets did that! Now they say it's some Ice-Man who brings presents. It's terrible!" Ok, that was news to me; I had heard of substituting Jugendweihe for Confirmation in the GDR during those days (in fact, I was invited to a Jugendweihe ceremony in 1998 when I was doing my internship over there for 3 months - it was still being practiced then!), but never had I heard of totally rubbing out Christmas, even a secular view of it! btw- to see how messed up Jugenweihe really is, click here. That was truly sad. Boo on the Communists!

On to happy thoughts, like how I can't believe that in two and a half weeks we'll be at my parents' house in Indianapolis! or how in 38 days we'll be watching my little sister get married!