Ich hat 8 jahre in Deustchland gewohnen. Warum spreche ich Deutsch nicht? Scheiße!!!


This blog is a space where I've given myself permission to express my thoughts as they come to me without the pressure to clean them up, or translate them for anyone's benefit; just my naked thinking showing up as text on screen. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes poignant, sometimes absurd; kinda like me.

Three things you need to keep in mind as you read my posts:

1.) I have extremely sexy eyebrows.
2.) I didn't handpick all of those videos to the right. I love Adam Curtis, and this was my YouTube compromise.
3.) I like semicolons; I think they're fun!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Why so much violence?



I got a new boss this week. she's a black woman, so I feel like I have the room to be more playful with her.

We had a brief meeting today to plan a training and a trip. At the end of the meeting she murmured something as I was walking out the door.

Me: "What?"



Her: "Uhm- I think you heard me."

Me: "No, I didn't. What did you say?"

Her: "I said, 'another one of your 'yo mama jokes' and Ima whup yo ass!'"

Me: "You gon whup my ass?"

Her: "Up here in front of all these white folks. Don't make me pull out my blackness- whup yo assss."

That exchange made my whole day. I love working with black women!!

Second highlight:

We just got a new addition to our department. And, her old supervisor stopped by to chat with me today.

Me: "Uhm- I'm still kinda new here, so I don't fully understand everything that goes on. And, when we start talking about other people's responsibilities beyond my division, I have no clue!"

Her: "Uh-huh."

Me: "But, I have a question, and I was wondering if you could help me understand something."

Her: "Sure!"

Me: "Okay, so we're getting Birget, but before she is transferred, the work that was previously spread between your section is now being done by Birget all by herself."

Her: [nods]

Me: So, now that she's doing the work of three people, what are ya'll going to be doing.

Her: [full-body cringe] "words- words-words..."

My boss (as I'm telling her the story): [sigh], "She wanted to punch you in the head didn't she?"


Me: "Really? I didn't think it was rude. I mean, I didn't say it in a rude way. I even cushioned it with, 'I don't understand everyone else's responsibility...'"

My boss: "She wanted to punch you in the head."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

the blog is quite amusing! I'll have to come back. And as someone who understands (and used to speak) German, I can appreciate that too dammit!

argyle socks said...

It's terrible. All I can remember is profanity and stupid shit like, "Where us the train station?"; "stamp"; "That is a good idea!"; and "geld" which is different from the Yiddish "gelt" I learned during an exchange with an in-law where we kept "politely" correcting each other, with increasing degree's of frustration. Oh! And the slang for "sperm", who could forget that?
"Wir machen tanzen!" Pretty much I use that one every day.

Anonymous said...

Ja, naturlich! yeah, I went through a phase where I used "genau" and "scheisse" all the time in place of the english words.. that was when I got back from Vienna/Berlin and was missing the fact that I wasn't awkwardly trying to converse with people and getting angry with them for switching to English as soon as they heard my awful German accent. Sigh.

argyle socks said...

Das ist genau wie so.