Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The donkey ate my homework.....

Today I was caught off guard when my door bell rang at 9 am and there stood my German teacher. I said to her come in I didn't think we had lesson until Thursday? She said nein every Tuesday and Thursday. Yes but last Thursday you said okay Thursday at 9am so I just figured she must be busy this Tuesday who am I to ask. All along I'm thinking "oh s@#t I didn't do my homework" come on I had until Thursday! I started to panic what was I to do, to say, OMG I studied a bit a couple days ago, look the direction of my books a few times over the weekend, dusted around them....crap! Then it dawn on me I'm paying her and I'm an adult not a 14 year old that just got busted, calm down!

We continued our lesson from last week and moved on to irregular verbs and pronouns, pronoun replacement, etc.. ......so it was insane! So she is telling me I must practice my nouns, and pronouns and yada, yada,yada is all I hear or blah, blah, blah.... I know I'm the lazy student I learned about last lesson Peter or Paul whatever! But then she says to me, " how do they say in English about the donkey bridge?" I look at her with an expression the says "what the .... are you talking about and then I smile big like I'm going to start laughing. I feel it starting, you know the kind the starts inside, where your body shakes, but I stop myself. She is like oh never mind back to lesson and throws some German question my way like Where is the book? Well I'll tell you where the book is its on the donkey bridge with my homework!

9 comments:

Ina in Alaska said...

U R A RIOT!

Unknown said...

That is so funny! Sounds like how I would be thinking in that situation!

Joyce said...

I do hope she has your sense of humor! Isn't it funny no matter how old we get we can revert back to that child. LOL... I love the donkey story!
I would have lost my girdle if she showed up at my door and I wasn't prepared. xoxo

Coffee with Cathy said...

Love it! Thanks so much for sharing.

Tami said...

Germany people are so serious. She must think you are an American Quack! HA HA! I love your sense of humor!

Leciawp said...

It sounds as if you're able to keep your sense of humor...hang in there - it is bound to get easier. (sometime)

Kim said...

Well, since I flunked French camp, I have to hand it to you....I'm not quite sure how I'd handle that little surprise!

I can't get your blog to show up on my blog roll. I keep trying to add it but it says it doesn't recognize the URL. What is up with that?

Anonymous said...

Okay your german lesson stories are sooo funny! I can totally picture the scene with your teacher! Thanks so much for making me smile today! Mary

Anonymous said...

*hehe* She translated a German term, "Eselbrücke", which literally IS "donkey bridge". But it means "mnemonic".

"Eselsbrücke" has quite a nice story to it - it's a literal translation of Latin "pons asini" which is a philosophical term (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pons_asinorum).
The Latin term goes back to Plinius, who said that donkeys don't want to cross a bridge if they can see the water underneath.
The philosophers used this as a metaphor - you can see logical/mathematical problems through the "pons asini" the same way the donkey can see the danger (=water) through the bridge.

The German translation first meant "problem which confuses the learner" and then changed its meaning to "technique which helps to understand and remember".

Hmmm, I hope I'm not boring you...