Kenji and I amused ourselves in Strasbourg by making this video. It’s kind of an inside joke involving one of Kenji’s PC friends and a John Lennon impersonation caught on video, but we also made it because the French are so darn dramatic. Germans hotels would have been entirely more direct about towel protocol, but [...]
Archive for the ‘culture’ Category
imagine all the towels
Posted in culture, language, life on September 2, 2008 | 2 Comments »
the great european train adventure
Posted in culture, language, life on August 19, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Here I am in a swank French hotel in Strasbourg, listening to the cars go past below the open window and watching the people coming and going from the train station. There’s wireless internet here, so I’m taking the opportunity to write more about my globetrotting summer.
Kenji and I made it to Vienna last Thursday [...]
people will believe anything these days
Posted in church, culture, life, pop culture on July 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One more week of piano camp left, huzzah! Large groups of children…so over it. Give me one kid at a time and I will happily teach them. Heck, give me a piano lab full of adults and I’ll be just as happy. But too many children make me tired. I’m not cut out for this [...]
we don’t need no stinkin’ change!
Posted in church, culture, language, theology on April 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Another interesting quote as I sit here at Steve’s reading and writing about North American German Lutherans. This one is from an article entitled Singing from the Right Songbook: Ethnic Identity and Language Transformation in German American Hymnals by Otto Holzapfel:
Songbooks and church prayer books are among the cultural goods that persist most conservatively in [...]
killing time
Posted in church, culture, language, pop culture on April 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
While waiting for yet another couple of cheesecakes to solidify to the point that I can turn off the oven and go to bed, I have been browsing random books on the bookshelf. Nerdy, I know. Anyway, I came across this quote from the articulate Rodney Clapp that relates to my previous post on cultural [...]
culturally evangelical
Posted in church, culture, theology on March 20, 2008 | 3 Comments »
A caveat: This blog serves the purpose of providing a space to practice articulating my thoughts clearly in writing as I embark on the experience of writing a masters thesis. Several of my readers identify themselves as evangelicals, and so I wish to state that I mean no offense to them directly—this is merely my [...]
cultural differences
Posted in culture, language on August 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
In Germany, everything that is not allowed is forbidden. On the other hand, in the US everything that is not forbidden is allowed. For example, you can turn right at a red light in the US as long as there is not a sign prohibiting you from doing so. In Germany, you can’t turn right [...]
the milk drinks the girl?
Posted in culture on July 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
This is probably not funny if you’re a native German speaker, but it is somehow amusing to a native English speaker who isn’t used to gendered nouns. In one of the exercises in my German reading course, I’m supposed to replace all the nouns in the sentence “Das Mädchen trinkt die Milch” (“the girl drinks [...]
foreign language fun
Posted in culture on February 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Gotta love example sentences in language books. This one is from German Quickly: A Grammar For Reading German by April Wilson–”Ein vorwitziges Schäflein frißt der Wolf.” (“The wolf eats an impertinent little sheep.”)
Impertinent little sheep…..impertinent little sheep…I can’t stop laughing about this one. Impertinent little sheep….
This is what happens to you when your native language [...]
jesus junk store
Posted in church, culture, life on August 17, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
The following is an exaggeration of my trip to Amazing Grace Christian Store. It’s not meant to offend anyone who lives in or likes the Christian Bubble; I’ve just lived outside it long enough to notice the contrast and want to comment. Besides, it was funny! Or maybe I’m a mean person. :-P Anyway, enjoy!
On [...]
