Skifahren in der Schweiz

People at Harvard are always saying that the connections you make there last a lifetime. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of Harvard students in my little corner of the deutschsprachigen Raum, so I haven't been able to extend the Harvard bubble for another year here. Which makes me even more happy that I made friends with the VUSers (Visiting Undergraduate Students), who are mostly Germans attending the University of St. Gallen in der Schweiz, during my last year of college. I already went to Oktoberfest with some of them, and this weekend, I was invited to a tiny village in Switzerland for skiing, sledding, eating, and other winter activities.

Schüler Say the Darndest Things: Advanced Cuts

I've mentioned before that my students are hilarious. Many times, their humor can be appreciated by anyone, but some of their jokes are more subtle. The more you know about Austria, the funnier they get.

A Tale of Two Bälle

Last night, I went to the TU-Ball in the Hofburg. I don't want to wax too poetic about it; I primarily want you to look at these pictures, tell me I looked stunning in my dress, and be jealous that my life is basically a fairy tale / something out of a Jane Austen novel:

Austrian Privilege Checklist

A few nights ago, I went out to dinner with some of the other Fulbright combined grantees (after our waltzing lessons -- yes, I'm going to a real Wiener ball at the end of the month!). We got to talking about lesson plans, and one of the other TAs mentioned that she's led some pretty successful lessons using Peggy McIntosh's white privilege checklist. Her kids, though, mostly well-to-do Austrians without migration backgrounds*, weren't really getting how this all relates to Austria. "But there aren't that many black people in Austria," they said. "It's not the same."

No, it's not the same. Which is why, taking my cue from McIntosh's original article, a list of religious privileges I found on the Internet, and the experiences of myself and my students, I've generated this checklist of Austrian privileges:

Fasching

"I'm Gonna Fail!"

"Harvard has failed us," goes the speech by Scott Levin-Gesundheit, my former PAF, at Harvard gradation. "And by that, I mean it's given us B-pluses."

I have, throughout my school career, heard from countless friends and schoolmates that "I'm so gonna fail," "I totally failed that exam," etc. And somehow, it all came out okay. No one actually failed out of high school, or of Harvard, or even failed a single class. "Failure" in the American school system is a subjective -- doing more poorly than you had hoped or expected -- rather than an objective experience. Not so in Österreich.

A Purpose, It's That Little Flame

On Friday, I was leading a discussion with a small group of sixth formers (16-year-olds) about social problems, and making a difference in the world. Suddenly, one of the students, who had been super-engaged and participatory throughout the discussion, turned to me and said, "I feel like it sounds so awful when I talk. Like beschissenes German English." It was a problem that I know well.