Yes, so, things carry on, pretty well I think. Continually realising I´m very fortunate in many things - you know what I said a while ago about being bombarded with German even despite my poor ability to reply in kind, and knowing it to be a good thing though sometimes difficult? It turns out that that isn´t the experience of every native English speaker who has come here. Some find that even when they start a conversation in German, they are usually replied to in English. It´s very understandable and commendable that some Germans will be keen to use the opportunity to practise their English. I think the problem is when the English speaker starts to believe that their efforts in German aren´t being considered worthy of being engaged with... That could stunt confidence, and actually hurt, even though it is likely totally not intended to do so. This is, astoundingly, not an issue I´ve experienced enough to be affected by it in this way. Maybe I´m even guilty of allowing an uneven balance between my German practice and the English practice of those I speak with. I share a kitchen with an English language student who probably wishes I´d ask ´how are you?` rather than ´wie geht´s?` at least once in a while. It´s difficult to find a balance, as with anything. And I´m only here for the shortest of times - I´m sure things will only get better for the other native-Englishers who are all here for longer.
Hopefully, in the next week or so, I´m going to be able to identify some compounds, even if they aren´t exactly the ones we´re after (though there´re signs that we might have tracked down at least one of those!) - it´s taken a lot longer than I´d expected to whittle fractions down and purify them, but I´m getting excited to be close to actually putting a finger on a compound (not literally, these grubby paws ain´t gonna thwart results at this late stage). Wherefore hast the time gone? Even more hopefully, there´s still enough left not to have any loose ends by the time I have to leave...
Did I mention how much more hugging seems to go on here than at home? I think the further south you go, in Europe at least, the less personal space you can expect to be entitled to. Haha. Sometimes this prudish Brit among prudish Brits is quite alarmed at how compressed queues are in shops. But mostly, it´s nice. At church, maybe especially, a lot of people hug when they meet and depart, every Sunday. At this church at least, there seems to be a determination to live like a family, really: a man called Niels spoke to me for just a couple of minutes before the service one Sunday, then invited me and others to lunch the same day. When I met him the next Sunday, we hugged. Having met twice in history. I know I´m no hug ambassador, but I´d say that normally in Scotland, you have to earn your hugs, especially if you´re a young woman and the other is a married man. Like, you have to have gone through a challenging experience with someone else such that your shared endurance brought you closer (c.f. eating doughnuts without licking your lips), or you have to be in the same family. The second doesn´t always hold, day on day... Sometimes Hogmanay on Hogmanay. But in this case, I don´t think I did much hug-earning, by my usual thinking. I think I just showed up as a sister in Christ. I think it´s been wonderful to be shown that we can be, and ought to be, closer. The flipside to this was the account of a woman at church´s experiences of living in the north of England for a few years: she said that she couldn´t understand why people would stand a metre away from you when talking, or, if you sat down beside someone at a bus stop, they would move away. After a few months, someone put their arm on her shoulder when speaking to her, and she nearly fainted in relief. Funny, but don´t doubt it´s true. Before I put my foot in it again, I know that not all British people are guarded in the way this suggests; some people are veritable hug merchants, some aren´t and yet are some of the warmest you will meet here.
It´s Lent, and I thought that since I am in a place where apparently a lot more people observe it than at home, I should try to tag along. Some people go all out: Guido, one of the PhD supervisors, is giving up meat, coffee, sweets, television... I have decided to cut out just coffee. Big deal for me, you know. Except, I sort of cheated/modified my plans: it´s not a good idea to stop drinking coffee abruptly, if you have been quite a moderate to heavy user. Ahem. So, I decided I´d have one cup a day for a week... And now, until Easter, I´m a cold turkey. This here is to be my staple for the ensuing:
Apple tea. Yumm-eeee.
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