School Memories

[Guest Hero to all Children]

In elementary school a short, fat kid who disliked me a lot tried to strangle me from behind as I was tying my shoes. I managed to stand up and throw him off, the next day his parents demanded that my parents pay for the damage done to his $200 Nike sneakers because they got badly scratched as he fell off of my back.

 

 

Juniour High: Getting stuffed into a garbage can, that fucking sucked.

 

Highschool: Becoming the rebel without a clue, growing a multi-coloured mohawk and almost giving a 63 year old teacher a heartattack during a heated arguement in class.

 

Falling asleep and falling off the chair during class.

 

Having an "assertive" young Turkish girl break my nose as I stood up rapidly, right into her out-stretched palm.

 

Not being present 60% of the time and still passing every year but my final one above average. Eat that, German school system!

 

Having to explain and teach my IT-teacher how to deactivate the web-based style in Windows 98.

 

Organized crime left and right, drug dealers everywhere, prostitution, loads of underage sex and terrible equipment. If it hadn't been for the blackboards you could have fancied yourself to be sitting in a crack dealer's den with all that cracked, halfways painted and dirty walls.

[Richard 0]

So Hero, just out of curiousity, how was the reaction over there to the d-day anniversery?

[Guest Cerebus]

The day I met my future wife in Art History class.

[Guest Hero to all Children]

Well, I didn't see people celebrating or rioting on the street.

Most TV channels had live coverage of the ceremonies throughout most of the day, the news in general was full of it, the background and the reminder that Chancellor Schroeder was the first German Chancellor to attend these ceremonies.

 

The German PBS-type channels (funded by taxes and thereby not dependant on ratings, god yes) had eight hour specials chock full with documentaries and old material.

 

Mix some of Reagan's death into this and you have yourself Sunday's newsday.

 

 

 

All in all I'd say that Germans are still remotely grateful for the whole thing, which is more than I can say about the French. Which may be because we're taught that WW2, the Nazi time and Hitler in general were deplorable; and that the Allies saved us from ourselves. Whereas the French are allowed to call themselves the victors of WW2 even though they got their asses handed to them and were welcomed on board of the Allies' metaphorical ship for political reasons.

 

Somehow I'm a little irked by the fact that most Germans call the Iraq war unconstitutional (which is true) and are against it because of that. WW2 wasn't much more constitutional either, Germany had never attacked the US. However: The outcome justified it. Europe gained independence and democracy (thirty years later, after Franco snuffed it.)

 

The big difference is that the Germans didn't show massive guerillia resistance and that the war was "honest" when it came to the reasonings for it. Oh and that Germans are a bit unreasonable when it comes to reality, like most openly liberal but not Libertanian people.

 

 

 

 

In far less words: It was well recieved, people remembered, there was random Anti-Americanism regarding Iraq and most people paid tribute to Reagan.

[Richard 0]

Actually Germany and Italy declared war on the US. Although we would have probably found a way to fight them anyway.

[Guest Hero to all Children]

Before or after Pearl Harbor? The last thing Germany would want is to involve another powerful nation in that war. Maybe it was also a symbollic show of fraternity with Japan.