Konjunktion Junktion, was ist dein Funktion?

There was a time when I couldn't imagine not being a student. Two and a half years ago, master's degree in hand, I entered the workforce fully intending to go back to school for my MFA in Directing within the next two to three years. Clearly, plans change. I like being a working girl. It suits me. And being a director satisfies both my nerdy academic side (I heart research) and the side of me that really wants, you know, a paycheck.

And yet here I am in Vienna, back in class, and I'm finding the transition a bit rocky. I go to German class every morning from 9:00 to 12:15. The first 90 minutes focus on grammar, then we take a 15-minute break and do conversation for the last 90 minutes. The grammar comes easily to me, and most of it seems like review, but the conversation is something else entirely. I'm trying not to beat myself up over it, but honestly, I don't know if I could speak German well if my life depended on it. Every time it comes time for me to speak, I become a stuttering, stammering mess with the vocabulary of a 4-year-old. In town I do fine, and I've already spoken German successfully to the housekeeper at my apartment on several occasions (including today when I broke a large mirror in my room—oops). I'm not sure why I have such a problem in class.

Today I had to speak quite a bit because we were talking about American politics. I'm the only American in a class with 1 Hungarian, 4 Czechs, 1 Belgian, and 1 Dutch. Yesterday we talked a lot about occupations, and we focused on typical jobs for men and typical jobs for women (a subject I find somewhat bizarre—what year is this?) We discussed how many women were in politics in Austria and in each of our home countries. Today the teacher brought in an article about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Most of the class had never heard either of those names, so it was on me to explain who they were, and what public sentiment about them was, and why, and what they stood for. REALLY? I think I would have a hard time answering those questions articulately in English, and I certainly have not learned to bulls*** auf Deutsch yet. I also had to explain that not everyone in the USA has health insurance, a fact that completely stunned my classmates.

So, basically, I'm just a typical American who can't speak any language besides English, doesn't know about what's happening in her own country, and spreads the news about our terrible health care system.

At least my camera doesn't have a neck strap.