Today I had big plans for what to do after class, but I ended up on Skype. I find that I spend so much more time on Skype when I am living “away”. It is the only way that I can feel like I can spend time with my friends and family. I Skype with my sisters almost every day, and my friends or work colleagues at least once a week. After talking to my computer (and through it my friends and sisters) for 3 hours, I realized I was hungry, and that I had so many things left to do!

I had just made and eaten dinner when my boyfriend came home from work, we walked my dog, and then he started watching the news, in German!

So, I am writing my blog, while the news is on fernsehen in the background. I think the station is called FAKT. There was a long report about a potential bridge to be built between Denmark and Germany, complete with many convincing computer-renderings. There were many long reports about fighting in the Ukraine, and Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and across the Middle East. As well, many images of war, of explosions, tanks, and machine guns. Also reports about Gaza and Israel. I can’t understand the news reports word for word, but it is interesting to compare the imagery and staging of the news here, as compared to the way it is presented in Canada. I can understand occasional words, maybe even frequent words, but it is still too fast for me to understand every single one, so most of the time I make sense from the pictures and gather together what’s going on from connecting the words I do understand. Although the nice thing about not understanding a language is being able to simply stop trying to understand, and letting the sounds fade into meaninglessness abstraction. Then the imagery becomes somewhat comical. I think the images on tonight’s news are somewhat more violent on German news – more explicit depictions of war, although to be honest, I didn’t watch very much of the news on TV in Canada. Wow, there was just a preview report for Planet of the Apes! Apparently it was filmed in Vancouver. Also – moustaches! I don’t think I have ever seen a Canadian or an American news anchor with a moustache, yet tonight, I saw probably three very serious moustaches.

And that is my report for tonight. Signing off.

Josh